Author of the Corelight series
The magic system in Corelight isn't window dressing. It's the shape of the story. Every Mark type, every current, every ability was designed to mean something — to reflect the person carrying it, to create specific kinds of conflict, to allow for a story that couldn't be told without it. The Corelight is ordinary in this world. That's the point. Magic that's been lived with for sixty years isn't dramatic. It's furniture. And what you notice about furniture is when something is missing.
Corelight is shelved as YA fantasy. It was written for teenagers who like their stories to not talk down to them, and for adults who remember being those teenagers. If you like your magic systems with real rules and real cost, your characters allowed to be complicated, and your endings earned rather than given — this series is for you.
"I wanted to write a boy who had been practicing being nothing for so long that finding out he was something felt genuinely disorienting — not triumphant. Not right away. First it had to feel like the floor moving."
— C.D., on writing Elias ValeBook Two is in progress. The world established in The Unmarked expands significantly — new characters, new Mark types in action, a deeper look at what the Corelight actually is and where it came from.
The Voidance. The old texts were clear that where there is an Anchor, a Voidance follows. Book Two is about finding out what that means — and what it costs everyone in Elias's orbit when the cost becomes real.
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Every story is a question. The Unmarked started as a question about identity and belonging, but it became something else while I was writing it. It became a question about cost — about what it means to carry something you didn't choose, in a world where everyone else carries something they take for granted.
"The magic is ordinary. The boy isn't. Getting those two things to work together without either one becoming a metaphor was the hardest part of writing this book."
— C.D.