Castles Crumbling Novels & Stories

Where they struck the bridge, they dissolved into ink that bled words for an instant: ENOUGH NO LONGER CANON Then vanished. The balcony itself crumbled, stone chunks falling in slow‑motion arcs before disintegrating into static midair. The world lurched. Not just the castle. Everything. For a dizzying second, it felt like someone had grabbed the entire hybrid landscape by its edges and shaken. The bridge under our feet stretched, then shrank. The neon city below flickered up, swallowing the castle’s base, then flickered down again. The pier stuttered, roller coaster track jerking in and out of existence.

Valtarin was the perfect mixture of city life and nature, and somehow, I couldn’t stay awake long enough to see it. I’ve only seen pictures of this place, but they do not do it justice. Nymeria’s main castle was beautiful, but very outdated. It looked like we were trapped in time back in the 1700’s. Valtarin has modernized everything. The castle stood tall, with the same shape as ours, but the exterior wasn’t stucco. It was made of polished stones and had a beautiful clay-tiled roof. There was a large fountain out front with phenomenal, luscious greenery in the middle.

I know my children are still okay, I feel it in my bones. Everything else around me is broken, dead, or a pile of rubble, but my family is living and breathing amongst it all. I look behind me and see half the castle has crashed, as though sloughing off from itself leaving what once was the center of the castle completely exposed. I try not to think of those that maybe didn’t get out in time. The black bricks that once erected to a monumental structure, now pile on top of each other like ash. I have a feeling that perhaps even the vampires don’t care about this building. They might knock down the other half rather than rebuild it. It never really belonged to them anyway.

Immi hoped her grandmother and the others had made good progress with the other three locations, they couldn’t afford to lose any time. “Move!” Layke yelled to the enforcers stood behind the gate, crouching down as the solid floor shook beneath them. He leaned over the edge of the castle and cast his gaze along the wall to see that it was crumbling to the ground rapidly like a domino effect. He and those with him threw themselves down the narrow steps as the sound of iron bending and concrete crumbling echoed around them like thunder. At the last minute, they jumped from the collapsing tower and landed against the dirt of the castle gardens, turning their backs on the crumbling castle. They

The citadel had never been this quiet. Once, its great halls rang with laughter, quarrels, songs, and the scratching of quills as scribes carried news from every corner of the Vale. Now the marble floor was cracked, half its towers lay collapsed into the ash-wind, and the banners of fallen houses dragged torn across the walls. Yet still, the surviving lords and queens came. Still, they gathered beneath a roof that trembled whenever the Hollow star burned red.

The Dragon King was thankful that so much time had passed that he could no longer tell If the skeleton of a dragon on the ground was anyone he knew. It took a while, but what was once a large beautiful castle is now in ruins before him. The big beautiful front door that Atticus had run in and out of more times than he could count, is no longer there. The magnificent entrance, the grand staircase, and the luminous chandelier that hung in the foyer’s center are all gone… the ballroom off to the left of the castle doesn't exist. The servant’s quarters just passed the ballroom are leveled.

Ashenrealm’s night sky was thick with ash, the glow of molten rivers painting the jagged mountains in eerie amber light. The Obsidian Spire stood tall, black and imperious, a sentinel against the darkness gathering beyond the kingdom’s borders. Inside, the castle was alive with preparation. Soldiers polished weapons, reinforced battlements, and whispered of the enemy’s growing numbers. Spies brought grim tidings: Malakar was amassing forces at the Shattered Vale, stronger than any expected, and the threat was imminent.

I decided that it probably was the only real option I had so I stepped forward. “I don’t know about this wife nonsense but I’d like to hear what you have to say” I said in as steady of a voice as I could manage. “Very well, I am sure I have all the answers that you seek. Come.” We began to walk towards the large castle entrance. I looked up to gaze at the castle that once had been so familiar to me. Nothing was familiar now. The shimmering white stone that once stood as a symbol of peace and acceptance had been stained with patches of gray, brown, and black debris. It looked worn and decrepit with no hint of warmth anywhere near. The thought of this once gloriously perfect castle now in such

That bit, at least, had been part of Cassandra’s plan. Now, the building couldn’t even be seen when driving by. The bayou had reclaimed the wreckage, erasing both the structure and the tragedy from the minds of the locals. It was as if the building itself had wrapped itself in a protective cloak of trees and moss. Cassandra’s little crumbling castle in the bayou. Crumbling, like she was. She had been beautiful once. And powerful. Curious, too. And that had led to her biggest failure. Cassandra liked to push her power to the absolute fringes of possibility. It hadn’t been enough for her to perform the ancient rites and spells of her people. Even speaking and raising the dead had lost its lust

I feel more than a touch of pride flying by his side, knowing that he is mine and always will be. Together we are flying under a cloudless sky, next to a large, blood-red moon. My scales of gold, and his of green, glow the color of rust under the strange moonlight. "Our world is burning, Carnelia." He warns me. "Don't breathe too deeply." I look down and see that indeed the earth beneath us was engulfed in flames. The spires of a grand castle crumble to fiery ash, taking with it the city under its shadow. It is strangely familiar, that castle. A prison of glass and stone crafted in power to crush the weak and underprivileged.