QSFer Kelley York has a new MM queer dark fantasy out (bi, gay, lesbian): Into the Glittering Dark.
How do you control something that cannot be tamed?
As magi apprentices, Everis and Wren have led a relatively peaceful life. But when the king dies under suspicious circumstances and Everis foils an assassination attempt on the princess’ life, the pair are sent by their master to investigate the only lead they have. In a city far away ruled by the dead king’s brother, they need to find answers—fast.
As an unlikely group of allies forms around them in the chaos, the apprentices will have to tap into everything they’ve been taught while relying on the likes of assassins, an eccentric shopkeeper, and an otherworldly avian to go up against an enemy unlike any they’ve encountered before.
But nothing about this plot against the royal family is what it seems. There’s blood magic at the root of it, and its seductive pull is something Everis has struggled to resist since he was a child. A struggle which makes things complicated…and dangerous. Wren has always pulled him back from the edge when he’s needed it, but what happens when they need fire to fight fire, and Everis is forced to bring out his darkness and learn to tame the untamable?
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Excerpt
Everis closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. In for four beats, out for four beats. Willing his heart to slow. An old trick he’d been taught by Wren when nightmares threatened to keep him up all hours of the night. He hoped it would work now.
It must have. It felt like mere seconds before his eyes snapped open, breath catching, heart lodging in his throat.
A bad dream.
Except Wren was upright in his bed, hair mussed, eyes wide and alert.
How long had they been asleep?
Long enough that the rain had let up at least somewhat.
And long enough that they were under attack.
Everis pitched himself forward, grabbed his sword and drew it from its sheath as he rolled to his feet. Wren scrambled to follow, but Everis was already out of the tent and into the night. Mud squelched beneath his bare feet. The sound of shouting knights filled the pass, echoing off the hills along with the reverberations of metal against metal as swords clashed.
Their assailants were dressed in deep browns and black, damned near invisible against the dark terrain. They moved like shadows, ganging up on any soldier they could find. What they lacked in proper training, they made up for in numbers and stealth.
A knight in a neighboring tent came rushing out, nearly losing his footing in the mud. One of the bandits swooped in, sword raised. Everis lurched forward, catching the blade with his own inches before it came down on the knight’s exposed neck. Swearing, the bandit drew back, refocusing his attention on Everis while the knight scrambled away.
“We aren’t merchants!” Everis snapped, taking a defensive stance. “We’ve nothing worth stealing!”
“We’ll see about that,” the bandit growled, before lunging again.
Their blades met with such force that the shock sent a jolt up Everis’s arm to his shoulder. He focused on his breathing. Lady Imaryllis’s words repeated like a mantra in his head.
Steady. Focus. Pay attention to not only your opponent but to everything around you—even the things you cannot see.
Magic was capable of guiding a magi, even in a swordfight. He only needed to listen to it.
Which was difficult when he had this ox of a man bearing down on him with one heavy swing after another, driving him back and away from the camp, away from anyone who might have come to help. It was all Everis could do to block and dodge.
Focus, Imaryllis’s voice said again.
She’d put them through combat drills for years. Taught them how to fight, how to create offensive spells and hexes, how to fashion poisons to be smeared on blades and arrowheads and flammable oils that would create a blazing sword or a blade of ice. But they’d never needed to use those skills outside of a training yard.
He lost his footing, plummeting to the ground, back striking the mud with a wet sound while a rock jabbed sharply into his left shoulder blade. He winced, caught a glimmer of steel overhead, and rolled to one side before it came down on him.
Gracelessly, Everis got to his feet. Practicing in the training yard on a clear, bright day with someone who knew the rules of honor was one thing. This was another.
He breathed deeply and tried again to focus. The man was larger than him. Stronger. Quicker than he looked, but still not as quick as Ever. He seemed to be favoring his right leg. An old injury, perhaps. His strokes were vicious but clumsy. His opponent relied on that sheer strength and stamina—so Everis just needed to beat him before he grew too tired to lift his damned sword. Even if the bandit was used to this terrain, he wasn’t immune to it.
Everis ducked beneath another wide swing. This time, when the mud shifted beneath his feet, he went with it. He let himself go with the momentum down to one knee, skidding forward a foot. Far enough that he could bring his blade across the back of the man’s right calf. Leather and skin parted like butter and his blade struck bone. The bandit howled in pain, leg buckling beneath him. With one last surge of adrenaline, Everis pushed to his feet, grasped his sword with both hands, and drove it into the man’s back.
He felt every bit of it. Visualized it. The blade glancing off the spinal column, gliding through muscle and lungs and ribs before the tip exited the other side. The bandit slumped forward, gurgling on his own blood.
For a few seconds, Everis didn’t move, his chest heaving and heart racing. It wasn’t like he’d never killed someone before. Just the other night he’d thrown a woman to her death from Cassia’s window. This was different. Felt different. He felt it the split second the man died. The sensation raced through his veins and the rush brought everything into crystal-clear focus.
They’d gone forty or fifty feet from camp. He could make out silhouettes fighting in the darkness. Metal against metal. Screaming. Cries of anguish and fury. He sensed…
Wren.
Everis planted a foot against the dead man’s back and yanked his sword free before dashing off for the camp as fast as his legs would take him. Everything around him seemed sharper. His adrenaline spiked, the earlier fatigue and achiness little more than a memory now. He vaulted over a fallen soldier, bringing his sword up across the back of a bandit who was engaged with Captain Annaliese. Annaliese didn’t even appear winded, though there was blood on her chainmail. Everis couldn’t tell if it was hers.
“I had it covered,” she said.
“Where’s Wren?” Everis demanded.
Annaliese frowned, whipping around. “He was just over there, last I saw. Stars, Everis, I can’t keep tabs on everyone right now!”
Everis scarcely heard her. He was already off like a shot, making his way through the fray. The knights were holding their own, years of practice and superior skill allowing them to drive the thieves back.
At the far edge of camp where the pass narrowed and the hills rose sharply on either side, another knight stood back-to-back with Wren, surrounded by a handful of bandits. He didn’t need to get closer to tell they were both barely hanging on through their exhaustion. This was their last stand.
I won’t reach them in time.
A blade sliced the air a fraction of an inch from Wren’s face, interrupting a spell he was trying to cast, and another took the knight in the shoulder while he tried to deflect yet another coming in from his left. The bandits attacked in pairs, making it difficult to block or dodge.
In seconds, the soldier hit his knees, doubled over and clutching his stomach. He must’ve been one of the ones sleeping, because he wore no armor, only the leathers he’d gone to bed in. Blood pooled from between his fingers, and he gasped, unable to do a thing as one of the bandits lifted his blade with the clear intention of taking the soldier’s head right off.
Wren knocked away the sword before him and whirled, narrowly catching that blade against his own to protect his companion.
Everything crept along slowly. The large bandit knocked Wren back. He stumbled, tried to turn in time to meet one of his original attackers. Block, block, parry—
Until a sword took him through the stomach and his expression went slack.
Everis screamed.
Author Bio
Kelley can be found with her wife playing video games and D&D in the redwoods of the Northern California coast. Her stories are a mishmash of queer characters, mental health issues, dark twists, bittersweet endings, and the macabre. In addition to writing, Kelley has her degree in Anthropology and is the mastermind behind Sleepy Fox Studio, creating book covers for other authors like her.
| Other Buy Link | https://books2read.com/GlitteringDark |
| Author Website | http://www.kelley-york.com |