Story cover for The Greylight Bride-- ONC 2025 by The_twilight_writer
The Greylight Bride-- ONC 2025
The_twilight_writer
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    Parts 5
  • WpHistory
    Time 29m
The_twilight_writer
Ongoing, First published Feb 02
darkfantasydarkforestdarkromancefantasyforbiddenromanceforcedmarriagegothicromanceonc2025opennovellacontestopennovellacontest2025romanceromantasy
Elenore was supposed to be dead. Even now, years later, it's as though her body  and mind remember this fact. With each passing winter she felt her debt grow heavier, the truth of her existence scorched into her mind.

Her life was an exchange. 

A desperate plea from her mother, bound in blood to a mysterious deity that haunts the windswept moors. She would be born a healthy, living child... Yet at the age of twenty-four she would be swept up into its world as its bride. Her soul forever bound to it. Her heart filled with a treacherous longing.
Each night it haunts her dreams and by day her eyes are plagued by visions of a world filled with dead things and a kingdom that crumbles under ground. 
............
Iris would do anything for her daughter. Kill for her even, if she had to. 
She never intended for it-- for him-- to ruin it all. One stupid mistake, one moment of desperation had damned them all. 
She had only wanted to keep Elenore safe. To keep the last remaining piece of her husband alive within her. 
The price for this was heavy. Too heavy. And with Elenore's twenty fourth birthday quickly approaching, Iris wonders how far she may need to go to keep her daughter safe.

Written for ONC 2025
Prompts:
1. You stumble on a mysterious door made entirely of brambles and thorns. As you step through, you're granted extraordinary powers. But with great power comes great responsibility-- it's now your duty to save the crumbling kingdom.

13. When you challenge a magical being, the rules are simple: you must finish what you started, no matter the cost.
All Rights Reserved
darkfantasydarkforestdarkromancefantasyforbiddenromanceforcedmarriagegothicromanceonc2025opennovellacontestopennovellacontest2025romanceromantasy
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Once Upon a Fairytale

37 parts Complete

Avoid looking into those golden eyes. One look is enough and you will be lost forever. Once upon a time, beyond the forests and mountains, where the leaves always wore the color of autumn, a girl with great talent grew up, with her mother and father. One day, however, their happiness was stolen by tragedy. Her mother fell ill and death called her to the other side. Nothing was the same anymore. Her father remarried. And in the end, time took him away too. Iris was left alone with her stepmother and stepsister. They made her a maid, a slave. A prisoner of a life she hated. But something deep inside her prevented her from leaving the house she grew up in - her home. There, as a child, she created all the miracles with her mother and wanted to continue doing so, to give joy to those less fortunate. Like when she made a dress for the butcher's wife, whom her husband no longer loved, that made her irresistible to him again. Or when she made a shirt for her best friend Jace that was supposed to protect him from the edge of swords, since he liked to provoke the royal guards. Her little secret. But one day, her peaceful life decides to take a completely different direction and everything goes wrong. She meets a prince. She helps her stepsister win him for herself. And ancient family secrets get involved when a demon she is magically bonded with appears. A long-hidden story begins to unfold before her, revealing the truth about her mother, her ancient ancestors, and herself. And it all started with her simply taking off the necklace she should never have taken off.

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