Gothicfantasy Stories

Lady Evelyn Ashbourne was meant to become the perfect noble wife. Instead, she awakened in the body of a man. In the kingdom of Vaelmora, noble houses survive on reputation, arranged marriages, and whispered scandals. Now hidden behind a false identity, while society believes Lady Ashbourne has fallen mysteriously ill. Evelyn suddenly finds herself walking through freedoms she was never meant to possess. Moonlit streets. Noble courts. Dangerous secrets. And a life she was never supposed to live. But in Vaelmora, rumours spread faster than war. And someone is beginninhg to suspect that Lady Evelyn Ashbourne may not be as absent as the world believes. ✦ New Chapters Daily

***** A gothic Wednesday AU ***** Reichenbach Academy has always thrived on perfection. Pressed Cabernet uniforms. Polished cobblestone. Pristine image. All while something ancient has been buried far beneath its halls. When a student, Daniel Gonzalez, collapses mid-class with glowing, unknown sigils carved into his skin, the administration insists that the situation is contained. But the students know better than to believe them. Thorn Rosales, known for trouble and sarcasm, hears the disturbance long before anyone names it. A song threading through the academy's bones. Xavier Thorpe, haunted by his past at Nevermore, begins drawing the same symbols that have appeared across campus, as if something is guiding his hand. Whether brought together by fate or something far more deliberate, they uncover the truth Reichenbach has spent centuries trying to bury. This is a slow-burn, lore-heavy gothic mystery about power, memory, and the lengths hatred can go. So, Welcome to Reichenbach Academy, where silence is a weapon, and the walls are starting to sing. I am also posting this to royalroad

I drowned, woke up in another world, got killed again by an arch-necromancer, and resurrected as half-zombie. I'm technically alive only because I'm magically bound to him. Now I'm stuck in a dark academy where bullying can be fatal, skeletons aren't in closets, but on payroll, students keep disappearing, and survival is very much optional. On the bright side, I've discovered a unique talent: the undead tend to fall in love with me. On the less bright side, an ancient lich wants to drag me into his world. Honestly, dying twice was the easy part. What to expect: - Humorous dark fantasy in an academy setting - Dark academia with Wednesday-like vibes - The heroine gradually discovers her hidden abilities - Slow-burn, subtle romance - complicated, awkward, and very intentional - A fake engagement / marriage of convenience (bad decisions made for good reasons) - Morally grey characters - Friendship, betrayal, jealousy, mystery and secrets

Welcome to Phoenix Heart Academy. Built on a cursed shoreline where storms never end and the sea never feels alive in a natural way, the academy stands as one of the most feared training grounds for war-bound cadets. Here, survival is not promised, strength is expected, and weakness is never forgiven. Students arrive from different places, carrying different pasts, all bound by one purpose to train, to endure, and to become something greater than ordinary humans. But beneath the discipline and structure of the academy lies something unspoken, something that no lesson ever directly explains. Power is not the only thing being shaped within these walls. In a place where loyalty is tested and trust is dangerous, every cadet learns quickly that nothing is as simple as it seems. Bonds form under pressure, rivalries grow in silence, and every choice carries weight far beyond the training grounds. And somewhere within it all, a new presence arrives who does not belong in any expected way. Pyropyles is a story of survival, strength, and the fire that refuses to go out even in the harshest storms.

In the Blood Court, power is not inherited. It is enforced. Aster Vale is the Court's deadliest enforcer, bound to silence, loyalty, and violence without question. He does not hesitate. He does not deviate. He does not fail. Until Lucien Viremont arrives. A noble-born vampire with a dangerous mind and no interest in obedience, Lucien is not meant to survive Court politics-let alone challenge them. But something about him refuses to be contained. And something about Aster refuses to look away. When the Court assigns them together, it is not protection. It is strategy. But the system makes a mistake it cannot correct. Because the more they are forced into proximity, the more the Court itself begins to fracture around them. And in a world built on control, desire becomes the most dangerous form of rebellion. CROWNLESS BLOOD is a dark vampire romance series about power, forbidden attraction, and the moment two men become an anomaly the system cannot classify. Book 1: Ashes of the Vowed Night More books to come in the CROWNLESS BLOOD series.

In the kingdom of Noctavelle, beauty hides cruelty. Behind glittering chandeliers and royal celebrations lies a palace filled with secrets, betrayal, and people pretending to be something they are not. The nobles smile while plotting each other's downfall, and the royal family rules through fear wrapped in elegance. At the center of the kingdom stands Seraphina Vale - the king's silent daughter, feared by the court and whispered about as The Hollow Queen. Cold, distant, and impossible to read, Seraphina has spent years trapped inside a life she never chose, hiding her loneliness behind perfect composure. But everything changes the night a mysterious jester arrives at the palace. Dressed in crimson and black, Lucien is unlike anyone the kingdom has ever seen. He speaks in riddles, wears a smile that feels dangerous, and somehow knows secrets no stranger should know. While the court sees him as entertainment, Seraphina quickly realizes something far more terrifying: The jester did not come to perform. He came for revenge. As murders begin haunting the palace halls and rebellion brews beneath the kingdom, Seraphina finds herself drawn toward the one person she should fear most. Because beneath Lucien's games and cruelty lies a darkness that mirrors her own. And in a kingdom where everyone wears masks, the most dangerous thing of all may be falling in love with someone who was born to destroy everything. The Crimson Court is a haunting gothic romance filled with obsession, mystery, betrayal, and emotionally broken characters struggling to survive inside a beautiful nightmare.

The Kingdom of Ash Veins operates on four simultaneous frequencies: a murder mystery with a body count that escalates toward apocalypse, a dark romance between two people who are both instruments of something larger than themselves, a psychological horror built on the disintegration of identity rather than violence, and a philosophical inquiry into consciousness, suffering, and what it means to belong to something.

[Of Monsters and Us Contest Entry] Death is the road. Life is the traveller. Our soul is our guide. In hopeless times, all it took for them to worsen was the word "hopeless." All it took was chaos for those times to unleash their fury in full force. A fury named - The Wraith.

Ephemeral Book One of the Shadow Bound Series Illyana was not born powerless. She was made that way. The choice of who she wanted to be, and who she could ever become, was taken from her before she even knew it belonged to her. On the night her life was sealed away, her power was buried with it, and the truth of what she was became someone else's secret. Now her home is gone, her family is shattered, and the world waiting beyond the ashes is hungry, merciless, and already reaching for what is left of her. Everyone wants something from her: her devotion, her obedience, her power, and her silence. But buried things have a way of dragging themselves back out, and when Illyana begins to remember, the question is no longer whether she will survive, but what she will become when she learns what was taken from her.

In the Kingdom of Vaelthorn, feeling is forbidden. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. By law, by conditioning, by eleven years of a king who decided that emotion was the specific architecture of disaster and built an entire civilization around its absence. Into this kingdom walks Amiana Morvaine - nineteen years old, silver-eyed, and carrying a gift that has spent her entire life being called a curse. Everything she touches dies. Everyone who gets close enough to feel her warmth is drained of it. She has spent nineteen years learning three rules. Don't touch. Don't feel. Don't love. Ashael Thorne has spent eleven years learning the same rules from the other direction. The Kingdom of Silence series is the story of what happens when two people who have made their entire lives out of distance find each other across it. It is dark and it is devastating and it is, at its core, a story about the specific courage of choosing to feel things in a world that has decided feeling is weakness. It is enemies who were never really enemies. It is a king who walks to windows he has never walked to before. It is a girl whose curse turns out to be a gift - the land's judgment, made specific and personal and human - finding the one person in a kingdom full of carefully constructed emptiness who is genuine all the way down. It is love with no condition attached to it. No exit built in. No door left standing. The Kingdom of Silence series is a dark fantasy romance intended for adult readers.

In a kingdom governed by threes and traditions reaching back to the very Founder, Calla must navigate the Accords and her own loyalties. Once dismissed as an outsider, she rises within the Krillian court's careful cruelty, the King's favor finding her more than some believe it should. Ares Valebrand, her shadow and sentinel, gathers half-lies and hidden knowledge, building the steps she climbs toward power. Yet as Calla grows more entangled in the politics of the rival courts, whispers turn to screams inside of her, and her body bears marks she cannot fully remember. Symbols that feel less like scars and more like pleads. Note: Please let me know your thoughts in the comments!!! It is very appreciated. I love this story.

"He was never supposed to want her this much." "She is the prophecy. He is the consequence." "Love her, and the world burns." "Some bonds are written in blood before they are lived."

In the kingdom of Velmora, love is not a blessing. It is a prison written into the soul. Lacy Valeria Valerose has spent her life haunted by symbols she cannot understand-runes that appear in her sketches before disasters strike. When a forbidden mark burns itself beneath her skin, she is pulled into the world of Nytherin: an ancient spell language carved from blood, emotion, and divine power. At the center of it all stands Zivon Hollow, the cursed heir known as the Hollow Crown. Feared by the kingdom and consumed by living tattoos that crawl beneath his skin, Zivon carries memories of lifetimes he was never meant to remember. And in every one of them, Lacy was there. Every lifetime, they fall in love. Every lifetime, it ends in blood. As gods begin hunting them and the soulmate bond between them grows stronger, Lacy and Zivon uncover a terrifying truth: their connection was never meant to unite souls- It was created to keep them under control. Because together, they possess enough power to destroy the divine realm itself. Now the kingdom stands on the edge of ruin, ancient magic is waking beneath the earth, and love may become the most dangerous spell ever written. Some bonds are written. Theirs was carved by gods.

Rok 1380 W Virelle nie ma już świtu ani zmierzchu w sensie, który pozwalałby miastu zachować dawny rytm. Dni nie zaczynają się już jednoznacznie, a noc nie przynosi wyraźnego końca aktywności. Miasto funkcjonuje w stanie zawieszenia, w którym porządek opiera się bardziej na przyzwyczajeniu niż na rzeczywistych sygnałach czasu. W centrum władzy znajduje się postać, wokół której skupiają się wszystkie decyzje, choć sam system nie działa już w sposób jednoznaczny i przewidywalny. Od momentu jej przybycia kolejne elementy administracji zaczynają działać w sposób nieciągły - nie poprzez jawne zmiany, lecz przez stopniowe zaburzenia procedur, komunikacji i reakcji instytucji. Zdarzają się sytuacje, w których elementy systemu przestają działać zgodnie z oczekiwaniem: brak odpowiedzi na oficjalne wezwania, opuszczone posterunki, niepełne raporty lub zachowania, których nie da się jednoznacznie wyjaśnić. Nie są to wydarzenia spektakularne, lecz drobne przesunięcia, które stopniowo zmieniają sposób funkcjonowania miasta. W archiwach i księgach pozostaje zapis tego, co było, ale dostęp do tych informacji staje się coraz bardziej ograniczony. Nie jest to jawny zakaz - raczej stopniowe utrudnienie, które sprawia, że przeszłość przestaje być praktycznie użyteczna dla bieżących decyzji. Ktoś, kto przychodzi do Virelle w poszukiwaniu jasnych odpowiedzi, szybko odkrywa, że system nie oferuje już jednoznacznych wyjaśnień. Zamiast tego pozostają obserwacje, nieciągłości i sytuacje, które trzeba interpretować bez gwarancji, że prowadzą do jednego, spójnego wniosku. Okładkę wykonała: @idylliczna

At Eclipsa Arcanum, magic and technology intertwine and secrets cut deeper than spells. Rayne Elara Mortelle, haunted by her family's disgrace and her parents' mysterious deaths, keeps to the shadows of the academy's shifting halls. But when a forbidden experiment hurls her into a wild, dangerous realm, Rayne discovers powers she never imagined-and a love she can't afford to lose. As dark forces close in and reality begins to unravel, Rayne must choose: embrace her legacy, or risk destroying both worlds. One girl. Two worlds. No way back.

A Wuthering Heights Reimagined

They say the gods abandoned us. Maybe they were right to. Centuries ago, humanity betrayed the divine. In their hunger for immortality, they consumed the blood of a forbidden corpse-Xal'therion-and in doing so, became monsters. The gods vanished. The world fell. Now, broken cities and flickering magic shields are all that protect the remnants of mankind from the creatures they once became-the Xal'thir. I was one of them. I hide behind a human name, serving drinks, feigning weakness, starving slowly. But I am no hero. I kill to live, and I live in shadows. That is, until he found me. Dorian, the Executioner-silent, cold, relentless. He hunts my kind with blade and shadow, and now he hunts me. But I won't die quietly. Not yet. As war stirs and old powers awaken, the line between gods, monsters, and men begins to blur. And in a world where everyone is pretending-who's really fallen?

After gargoyles are confirmed living in the city of Manhattan, stirring up people's paranoia and mistrust, another creature is found prowling the streets. One merely looking for food, or maybe just a friend...

In a world where death is a certainty, a girl ventures out into the mortal realm to experience life as she's never lived before. She is the daughter of Death, sent to learn about life before death. Unexpectedly meeting, him, a mortal boy whose laugh is like the dawn breaking. And everything she thought she knew begins to unravel. Drawn into a world of vibrant colors, fleeting moments, and dangerous emotions, she finds herself falling for the very thing she was never meant to touch: love. And when fate threatens to claim him, she must confront the unthinkable. Can the daughter of Death defy the rules of the universe to save the boy she loves, or will she lose everything-him, her purpose, and herself-to the inevitability of mortality? "Where Death Meets Love" is a story of courage that defies fate, and will leave you wondering what it means to truly be alive.

Maris never meant to stumble into the Archive. One moment she was escaping the noise of her ordinary life, and the next she was wandering through endless halls of books that shouldn't exist-stories of people who were never born, futures that never happened, memories no one should remember. The Archive isn't just a library. It's alive. Its shelves rearrange, its staircases spiral into shadows, and its silence listens. And for some reason, it wants Maris. Drawn deeper by a trail of impossible books-one that knows her name, another that knows her past-Maris must decide if the Archive is offering her answers... or trapping her in a story she can never escape. Between days, between choices, between truths and lies... the Archive is waiting.