The Black Star

Not to be confused with the Black Star, the underground organization in Narashtovik, or Cellen, the mythical Black Star and magical artifact.

The third book of the Cycle of Arawn. The Black Star follows The White Tree and The Great Rift. It is available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook (narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds).

Synopsis
It's been three years since the end of the Chainbreakers' War. Dante has been in Narashtovik, learning about his new duties as High Priest from Olivander. Blays has been anywhere but Narashtovik- he wanders, then spends some time in Whetton and the Norren Territories mourning Lira and hiding from Dante. He ends up in Gallador, where he and Lolligan hatch a plan to bankrupt what remains of the Gaskan Empire. Blays goes undercover as Lord Pendelles and begins systematically ruining any member of the Gaskan nobility he can reach.

The Black Star opens a year into the scheme, with Blays working on a deal with Duke Dilliger, King Moddegan's nephew. The idea is to get Dilliger to buy bossen from Pendelles at an exorbitant price, then flood the market afterwards, making Dilliger's supply practically worthless as the market price plummets. Dilliger doesn't take the deal, and Blays- and Taya, who has been working with him for the past year- moves on to another potential buyer, Lady Carraday of Rollen, who is equally interested in the deal and has the liquid funds to take it. Before she can, the deal catches the attention of Moddegan himself, who invites Pendelles to the palace to discuss.

Dante has been in the Wodun Mountains, investigating strange lights seen from the mountain town of Soll as repayment for their aid during the Chainbreakers' War. Dante, accompanied by Lew, a monk (and a watcher assigned to Dante by Olivander), finds little but the lights and kappers, which have been getting increasingly aggressive and are beginning to threaten Soll. While in the mountains, Nak tells Dante through their loons that someone has finally found Blays. Dante rushes back to Narashtovik where he meets Cee, a bounty hunter, and follows her to Setteven, where she has indeed tracked Blays down. Dante disguises himself with the nether and makes it into the same event Pendelles has been invited to. Dante reveals Blays's identity to Moddegan and the two run. During the escape, Blays pushes Dante off the edge of the palace and runs for Pocket Cove. When Dante recovers from the fall, he tracks Blays through his blood, taken during the mad dash out of the palace. Blays is admitted into the Pocket by Minn, that day's guard, but Dante is not. Instead of trying to force his way inside, Dante returns to Narashtovik after Nak tells him that Hopp and the Broken Herons have camped themselves in the middle of Narashtovik and have information on the lights.

Back in Narashtovik, Hopp tells Dante and Olivander the story of Yona, a norren woman who saw strange lights in the hills and searched out Cellen, the Black Star, delivered it to the god Josun Joh, and lifted the drought that plagued their lands. After a minor telling-off from Olivander for haring off to Setteven and Pocket Cove after Blays, Dante dives into research on Cellen to determine if it's real and, if it is, if it represents a threat to Narashtovik. He finds some information in Samarand's old notes, gathering dust in one of the lower levels of the Sealed Citadel, and more from the Hanassans on Mount Sirini- Cellen is a powerful magical artifact that manifests very rarely and allows the user to accomplish feats of sorcery no one would otherwise be able to manage. Any more information on the Black Star would be found in the lands beyond the Wodun Mountains. Dante returns to Narashtovik and then sets out for Soll again, where Ast Modell leads Dante, Cee, Lew, and Somburr across the mountains to Weslee.

Meanwhile, in Pocket Cove, Blays begins to learn the nether. It goes very slowly, but the People believe that anyone has the capacity to learn. Minn puts her standing in the Pocket on the line to train Blays, walking him through the Seasons until he can finally reach the nether. When his progress stalls, Minn takes Blays to Ko-o to search for a kellevurt, a snail that's been known to help new nethermancers begin to use the nether. Minn is bitten by a shark while they search the waters around the island, but eventually Blays finds one of the snails and they return to the Pocket where Minn tries to teach Blays how to shadowalk. One night, Minn gets a visit from her brother, who tells her that their cousin Cal has been kidnapped. The whole situation would be frowned on by the rest of the People if they ever discovered it, since they're supposed to cut their connections to the outside world when the enter the Pocket. Blays offers to help, and they travel to Wending, where they learn that Cal was taken by a woman named Tallivand, claiming to be an agent of Narashtovik, when his father Dennever refused to sell The Almanack of the Cycle of Heaven. Minn masters bloodhunting and locates Cal through his finger, cut off and sent to Dennie as a threat. Minn leads Blays and a number of her uncle's men-at-arms to rescue Cal, where she beats Tallivand, who reveals that she and other Gaskan sorcerers from the Endless Pillars are also on Cellen's trail.

Minn explains what she knows of Cellen to Blays, the two head for the Endless Pillars to gather information, and afterwards they head into the Norren Territories after a party of Gaskan sorcerers who have tracked down an ancient norren statue of Yona carved from deepstone. Along the way, Blays learns to shadowalk at will. After recovering the statue, Blays decides to go after Dante, on the assumption that he also is looking for Cellen and should be stopped from acquiring it. Minn agrees to go with him, and they set out. After a brief stop in Narashtovik where Blays sneaks in and recovers some of Dante's blood for Minn to use in tracking, they head towards the mountains.

Dante's party first crosses into Weslee in the forests of Spiren. They progress through the lorens until they make it to the capital of Corl, where they find a Shrine of Dirisen. The first monk they meet knows nothing, but the second passes them a note with a time and location for a late-night meeting. Instead of the monk, Dante and Ast are greeted by a squad of the Minister's soldiers and are brought before the ruler of Corl, who summarily throws their party out of the city, where foreigners are forbidden. Cee manages to catch the monk they were supposed to be meeting who gives her another address, this one in Ellan, the capital of the plains region of Camren. While Somburr, and Cee try to track down the new address, Dante, Lew, and Ast go to the Stoll of the Winds, another library-temple like the Shrine of Dirisen or the Hanassans' home in the Houkallis. There they learn the story of Jeren and the Thirteen Lords of the Broken Circle. Later in the day, Somburr and Cee return for Dante and his reanimation skills and finally find their address- in the Echoes, an ancient city buried under the modern Ellan.

Dante descends into the Echoes with Cee and Ast, and is almost immediately picked up by Kasee Gage and her rebels, who offers to trade information on Cellen for their assistance spying on one of the Minister's agents in Ellan. After some time of this, Kasee's people are ambushed in the Echoes- a trap laid by the Minister's agent once he figured out that someone was reading his letters. Dante heals Horace, one of Kasee's men, following the fight, but Kasee calls off any further collaboration, blaming Dante and company for the losses she took. Horace, glad to not be dead, quickly gives Dante instructions to go to Morrive, once a city and now a desert. There, they find the remains of an old tower, basement filled with ancient mud and not-so-ancient snakes. Dante cracks open the ground, revealing layers of mud and entire trees buried beneath sand and stone, remnants of a thick forest a thousand years before. During the journey to the ruins of Morrive, Somburr decodes some of the letters they copied from the Minister's man, and discovers that the Minister is planning to find Cellen and march his armies on Narashtovik.

Dante's party returns to Corl, where they speak with Yotom, the monk they were supposed to meet on their first visit. They learn that Narashtovik is the Minister's target out of revenge for the disasters that struck Weslee when the Wodun Mountains came into being a thousand years before. The Spirish had spent the intervening time preparing themselves and thoroughly erasing themselves from any history to be found in Gask. Dante spies on the Minister and his cabinet with undead scouts to discover what he can of the Minister's plans while Somburr, disguised with the nether, searches the city itself. Dante finds maps of the Woduns from an overhead view- the Minister's attempts to track down Cellen. It takes days to copy the maps, and eventually Lew leaves to do some scouting of his own out of boredom. He discovers the Spire of the Earths, a temple and geology museum. The Minister's men catch him, however, and he's thrown to his death from the loren. Dante takes a piece of deepstone from the Spire and leaves Corl. He finds a larger portion of deepstone in the direction of the Woduns using the same principle behind bloodhunting- finding the link between this piece of stone and the larger whole it was once a part of.

Back in the Woduns, Dante uncovers a platform made entirely of deepstone- and in the center, the Black Star, not yet ready for use. It is immediately stolen by Blays, hidden through shadowalking nearby. Running from the pit Dante dug with the nether to reveal the platform, Blays runs directly into the Minister, who in turn takes Cellen from Blays. Blays and Minn run from the Minister and his men and end up sealed in the cave Dante had carved for his party the night before. They're saved from asphyxiation by Dante returning and asking what exactly they think they're doing in his cave. After some mostly-civil discussion, introductions, and explanations, they all make it back to Narashtovik, where Dante tells the story of their journey to the rest of the Council. While they discuss, Minn enters the Council chambers and reveals what she knows of Cellen and of Narashtovik's stolen history. A thousand years before, during the wars of the Rashen and the Elsen, the earthmovers of Narashtovik found the Black Star and traveled to the Wodun Hills, where they used Cellen to raise the hills into the impassable mountains that stand there today. The act caused massive climate shifts in Weslee- terrible flooding in Spiren and Morrive, the deserts of Camren converted into grassy plains and Morrive from forest to desert. In horror at what they had done, the earthmovers left Narashtovik, taking with them all knowledge of the skill. They settled in Pocket Cove, where they passed their history down a thousand years. Minn tells the Council this story because she believe they deserve to know why they are about to face another war- she would be killed if the People of the Pocket found out that she had shared the knowledge.

In a last-ditch effort to not get destroyed, the Council comes up with a plan- a small strike force sent into the heart of Corl to reclaim the Black Star. Blays and Minn return to the Pocket to recruit the People, which works after quite a few threats and Blays discovering how to shadowalk through solid stone. Dante goes to the Norren Territories to ask for help from Mourn and anyone else who will come to Narashtovik's aid. When Blays returns with Ro and the majority of the People, they set out into the Woduns once more. The People dig a massive tunnel through the mountains into Spiren, but will go no further. Minn returns to the Pocket with them. Upon reaching Corl, Dante scouts out the Minister's flat and locates him. Dante, Blays, and Somburr ascend to the Minister's flat where Blays shadowalks into the Minister's palace- one of the only structures in the tree-city built entirely of stone. Blays stabs the Minister, takes Cellen, and runs. He makes it to the edge of the building before the Minister- not dead, and a nethermancer to boot- pushes him into the physical world where he is immediately revealed to the crossbowmen guarding the building. Blays is killed and Dante and Somburr run. They jump out of the loren and Dante keeps them alive by turning the ground where they land into mud as they fall into it.

On the ground, Dante uses his bone sword- carved from a rib of Barden knocked from the tree during the battle with Samarand- to cut the massive roots of the loren until the massive tree topples. He finds the ruins of the Minister's flat and Blays's body, but not Cellen. The Minister's voice rings through the forest- he survived the fall as well as Blays's blade- as Dante and his people search for Cellen. It's Cee who finds it, and she hands it over to Dante, who immediately uses it to resurrect Blays. Afterwards, they retreat from Corl. On the way, they engage the Minister, and Blays kills him just seconds before he would have killed Dante. The raid has its casualties- Ast and Ulev, a Council priest, are among them. The small army makes it back to Narashtovik and there are feasts and speeches. Blays leaves Narashtovik and returns to Pocket Cove, where he and Minn work out an arrangement where they will split their time between Narashtovik and the Pocket. On their way back to Narashtovik, they pass through Gallador. The Lakelands have been officially freed from the Gaskan Empire. Moddegan, after a series of bad investments, was forced to take out a loan from Narashtovik. Dante granted it, on the condition that Narashtovik take possession of Gallador Rift, which they then immediately freed.