Into the Glittering Dark, page 1
Into the Glittering Dark
Kelley York
Sleepy Fox Studio
INTO THE GLITTERING DARK
Copyright © 2023 by Kelley York.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
www.kelley-york.com
Editing Karen Meeus and Danielle Fine
Cover design Sleepy Fox Studio
Cover illustration Magdalena Pagowska
Cover typography Paradise Cover Design
Interior design Sleepy Fox Studio
Nova drawings Sebastian Mack
Character portraits Saira Afzal
eBook ISBN: 978-1-960322-05-0
paperback ISBN: 978-1-960322-07-4
hardcover ISBN: 978-1-960322-06-7
First Edition October 1, 2023
ALSO BY...
The Dark is the Night series
A Light Amongst Shadows
A Hymn in the Silence
A Calm Before the Storm
A Shimmer in the Night
The Wrath of Wolves
The Resurrectionists series
Glass Castles
Dark Horse
Standalones
Into the Glittering Dark
Unchained (as Ainsley Gray)
Other Breakable Things
Modern Monsters
Howl
Made of Stars
Dirty London
Hollowed
Suicide Watch
Hushed
Check out more at kelley-york.com
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CONTENT WARNING
Into the Glittering Dark is a dark fantasy containing morally gray characters, depictions of violence, death, and gore.
“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else’s liver. You must tear our your own, and not expect to get it back.”
— Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
0. EVERIS
INTRODUCTION
1. EVERIS
2. WREN
3. EVERIS
NATURAL MAGIC
4. ORIN
5. EVERIS
BLOOD MAGIC
6. EVERIS
7. ORIN
8. EVERIS
9. ORIN
10. EVERIS
11. CASSIA
12. WREN
13. ORIN
14. EVERIS
15. ORIN
16. WREN
17. ORIN
18. WREN
19. EVERIS
20. BRANT
21. WREN
22. ORIN
23. EVERIS
24. ORIN
25. WREN
26. ORIN
27. WREN
28. EVERIS
THE SCRIBES
29. IMARYLLIS
30. ORIN
31. WREN
32. IMARYLLIS
33. EVERIS
34. IMARYLLIS
35. ORIN
36. IMARYLLIS
37. CASSIA
38. ORIN
39. WREN
40. EVERIS
41. FAULK
42. WREN
43. EVERIS
44. IMARYLLIS
45. WREN
46. CASSIA
47. EVERIS
THE CARVERS
48. WREN
49. EVERIS
50. WREN
51. EVERIS
52. WREN
53. IMARYLLIS
54. EVERIS
55. WREN
56. EVERIS
57. WREN
58. IMARYLLIS
59. WREN
60. IMARYLLIS
61. WREN
62. EVERIS
63. WREN
64. BRANT
65. WREN
66. EVERIS
67. WREN
68. EVERIS
69. WREN
70. EVERIS
71. WREN
72. FAULK
73. IMARYLLIS
74. FAULK
75. WREN
76. EVERIS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Okay. Wow. This book was a long time in the making.
I started writing Into the Glittering Dark shortly before COVID hit. I was racing through this story like I never have with anything before, and it felt great.
Enter the pandemic, and my creativity crash-landed along with my mental health and physical health. Writing felt impossible. All I could do was struggle to keep up with work while dealing with the effects of being even more isolated than usual. Add on my grandmother’s death (thankfully not COVID-related), financial struggles, moving, and more… We had a rough time. (Didn’t we all?)
Finally, in 2023, I realized this story was so close to done. I had a gorgeous cover I had commissioned for the story, and I needed to get off my ass and finish writing it. So, slowly, painfully, I did. It turned into the longest book I’ve penned to date, and I’m glad for that because I felt satisfied with the world-building I was able to include. When I first started writing so many years ago, I desperately wanted to write fantasy. I tried and hav several half-baked attempts, but I wasn’t a strong enough writer to figure out how to make it all work, how to create a world, magic system, and characters that flowed together. I ended up starting with YA contemporary, and then tiptoed into historical/horror/paranormal. Into the Glittering Dark is my first terrifying foray into fantasy. I invested so much time, money, love, tears, and blood into this book. If it makes even a few people happy, I’ll consider it worth it.
Early reviews pointed out that the romance element of the story isn’t very prominent. During edits, I adjusted some scenes and include a few more, but really, this book was never meant to be a romance. It’s a dark fantasy following morally gray characters, and some of those characters just happen to be in love. I’m sorry if this disappoints anyone, but not everything needs to be romance-centric. Into the Glittering Dark ended up being so much about addiction, friendships, and family… and yet, it’s worth noting that almost every choice Everis and Wren make in this book is made for love of each other and Orin. It’s not hot and steamy, not in-your-face, but it’s there in every single page and decision.
So, I hope everyone reads and gets enjoyment out of those elements. I owe a massive thank you to my wife, who pushed me on this when I felt it was never going to happen. Also to my beta readers—of which there were many!—who caught typos and inconsistencies, and sometimes asked, “Does this character realize how awful the choice they’ve made it?” (HA! That’s what makes it fun.)
Although Into the Glittering Dark was written as a standalone, keep your eyes open, because I’m not done with them just yet…
-Kelley
0. EVERIS
ten years ago
They were calling it the Silent Plague. It swept into the city without warning and with no immediate symptoms. No boils, no coughing, no fever. People were fine until they weren’t, and then all at once they were engulfed by fatigue and lack of appetite, wasting away before their loved ones’ eyes.
Everis’s mother had been one of them. She’d come home from the market, bright and cheery. Later that evening, she went early to bed, claiming to feel under the weather. Over the next few days, her health deteriorated until all she did was sleep. All Everis could do at nine years old was remain by her side and look after her.
He went out three times: once to use the last of their money to buy food, twice to visit the local doctor to beg him to come see his mother or at least give her some medicine. The doctor was of no help. Everis didn’t have the funds and, according to the doctor, medicine isn’t cheap, boy. And so Ever sat at his mother’s bedside, trying to coax her to eat and drink. He kept her warm during the chilly nights and tried to cool her during the blistering heat of the day. He begged her to get better, swearing to any gods that might have been listening that he’d give anything to keep her with him, that they could take him instead. He even held her hand, eyes screwed shut, and tried to imagine he was transferring some of his own life into her body to somehow give her the strength to go on.
The city outside his window grew restless.
People were dying. Quickly. Some families packed up and left in a hurry. Others were too worried about transporting their ill; they knew they’d be turned away at the border of any other city. The doctors and healers in Balerno scurried about, tending to whom they could—but they couldn’t treat something when they didn’t even know what it was. A fine red fog had descended upon the town. Everis wondered if it had something to do with everyone being unwell, if some sort of dark magic had slithered its way into the city.
The city guards came then, pounding on doors, quarantining anyone sick and attempting to evacuate anyone who was not. They painted large red Xs on homes. One morning, they kicked in Everis’s door, took one look at him sitting there with his mother lying on her pallet… and swiftly retreated.
They painted an X onto his door, too.
Ever didn’t dare venture outside after that. The guards had broken the knob. He couldn’t lock it a
Then the city went deathly silent. Sometimes, the sound of someone crying carried on the wind kept him awake. Other times, the shuffle of hurried footsteps outside his door sent him scurrying into the wardrobe, afraid someone would enter to steal him away.
Someone did come for him, eventually.
He heard the footsteps outside his home, then a muffled voice. Everis scrambled for the wardrobe, tucking himself inside. Whoever it was, they would see his mother sleeping and leave. It wasn’t like they had anything to steal.
The intruder opened the broken door; the kitchen table ground against the floor but didn’t hinder them at all. Someone entered. No—two of them, at least. They spoke to each other in hushed whispers, too soft for Ever to make out. He could hear them creeping about the room, and he dared not move. But his leg was cramping, sitting as he was, and he had no choice but to shift slowly, carefully, to uncurl it and—
Creak.
He froze, heart in his throat, praying they hadn’t heard the traitorous groan of the wardrobe.
Seconds later, the doors flew open and Ever gasped. He found himself staring at a boy a few years older than him, sandy-blond hair, blue eyes, freckles. He wore peculiar robes Everis did not recognize. Beside him stood a much older man with long brown hair and a beard, wearing similar clothes. Whoever they were, they weren’t city guards. Healers? Had someone finally come to help?
“It’s alright, lad.” The older man’s voice was kind. “There’s no need to be afraid. Can you come out?”
Everis hesitated. Shook his head. Shrank back. “Who’re you? What do you want?”
“My name is Orin Sorrel. This is my apprentice, Wren Lumina. We are magi from the capital sent by the king to offer aid to the people here.” Orin frowned. “Are you ill?”
Magi! Of course, magi could fix this. Ever inched out of the wardrobe with a shake of his head.
“What’s your name?” the blond boy, Wren, asked.
His eyes flicked from Orin to Wren and back again. “Everis. Everis Noctur.”
“That’s a good name,” Orin said with a soft smile. “Everis, do you know where this red mist came from?”
Ever rubbed his skinny arms and shook his head again. His gaze darted past them to the woman prone on the floor. “Are you here to help my mum?”
Orin’s expression softened. “She’s gone, Everis. There is nothing magic can do to save her now. But I think you know that, don’t you?”
Everis’s vision blurred, his eyes filling with tears. True, his mother hadn’t opened her eyes in nearly two weeks, yet she looked so peaceful, as though she were only sleeping. At any moment, she could wake up, he’d thought. He stared at her. Waited.
“Do you have family elsewhere, Everis?” the older man asked.
Large tears rolled down his flushed cheeks. “No.”
Orin and Wren exchanged looks. After a long moment, Orin crouched before him, every movement slow and careful. “Would you like to come back to Midmere with us? We live in a castle. You’d have a warm bed, plenty to eat, other children your age to play with. And I might teach you magic.”
Ever scrubbed at his eyes with his dirty sleeve. From his limited experience, someone had to be born with magic. They couldn’t simply learn it. “I’m not a magi, though; I’m just a boy.”
“I don’t know about that. There’s a spark in you.” Orin smiled. “But even if you are ‘just’ a boy, I would see that you’re safe and cared for. If you’d like.”
He looked at Orin and then at his mother. Even now, she showed no signs of decay. By clutching her hand and willing with all his being for her to be well again, had he somehow gotten her to stay looking as she always had? Was such a thing possible? Was that the ‘spark’ Orin spoke of? The thought of leaving her made his chest hurt so fiercely he couldn’t stand it, but he didn’t want to be in this city any longer. He didn’t want to get sick; he didn’t want to die.
Orin offered him a hand. Everis ignored it and threw himself into the man’s arms instead, clinging to him. Wordlessly, the magi gathered him up and hugged him, so protective and warm. Ever sobbed against his shoulder, letting out the wash of relief and the sorrow at once.
A new home. A castle. Such a thing seemed like a dream.
Whatever it was, it had to be better than this nightmare.
INTRODUCTION
The Basics of Magic, Volume I
All magic is energy, and energy must come from somewhere. It was once believed that our bodies themselves fuel the spells we cast, but the Citadel came to realize that our bodies, in fact, do not generate magic but conduct it.
The energy flows through everything in our world—from people to rocks and trees and animals. It is stronger in some locations than others, and a magi’s ability to be in tune with the world around them greatly affects their ability to serve as a conductor. That is also believed to be why some magi excel in specific areas of magic, such as healing, potions, or written incantations. We each find our own method in which to conduct the energy from the earth into our spells.
It flows through all of us. We only need to best learn how to use it.
1
EVERIS
present day
There was nothing quite like the Friday-night banquets at the castle. Every other day of the week, Everis took his meals with Master Orin, Wren, and the other magi in the common room of their tower. The royal family dined there in the great hall. However, Fridays were a day of thanks to the gods and goddesses for another bountiful week, and commoners and nobles alike celebrated it with gatherings and plenty of food.
The table was full of honey-glazed ham, roast goose, stuffed eggs, warm bread, salad, and more that Everis hadn’t yet gotten to. He’d eaten two plates already, which should’ve been enough, and yet he eyed a potential third helping he would certainly regret later.
As he finally gave in to the urge to reach for a few more rolls and some gravy, Wren chuckled in the seat beside him. “I really do not know where you put it all.”
Everis flashed him a grin. “I’m a growing boy. Why do you think I’m already so much taller than you?”
Wren rolled his eyes and stole a roll from Everis’s plate. It wasn’t that Wren was particularly short. He was quite average, really, but when much of his time was spent around Everis—who stood a few inches above him despite being several years his junior—and Master Orin, who was taller than both of them, it made him appear smaller than he was.
On the other side of Wren were the rest of the magi in the employ of the royal family. Thirteen if one included Master Orin, Wren, and himself. Master Orin had a place in a seat reserved for a guest of honor at the right hand of the king—never mind that the king’s chair had sat empty for several months.
To the left of the king’s vacant chair sat Queen Danica Starling, beautiful with her crimson dress and red hair piled high atop her head. Princess Cassia sat across from him. She was sixteen with a soft, round face, dark skin, and hazel eyes, and was one of the kindest people Everis had ever met. While the queen couldn’t recall that Everis even existed, Cassia knew all the magi in the royal family’s employ and what their specialties were.
Not that Everis had a specialty yet. The first many years of a magi’s apprenticeship involved learning the basics and a little bit of everything. Later, many developed a taste for a specific subject. Some magi went on to be apothecaries with a knack for healing and medicine, like Drake Reed. Others took an interest in the study of magical creatures and history, like Mace Huntly. Or they became blacksmiths, so-called scribes—the magi who could engrave their spells into physical objects such as swords or armor—like Lady Imaryllis. Everis had been Master Orin’s apprentice for ten years, and he still hadn’t a clue what road he might one day follow or if it would lead him away from Midmere.
