Secrets of the Shadowlands

Secrets of the Shadowlands (SotS) is the third novel in the Cyrean Songs story arc and is written by Christopher D. Schmitz.

In the wake of the attack on Balgavarr at the end of book 2, Coryn has gone missing. Trapped within the gnomish cube, she discovers how to get in and out of the pocket space while her father and friends come to the aide of Icehome. She emerges just in time to die beside her friends and family as the undead press their advantage.

Ra'al's mother, badly wounded joins the last stand when Rawrgyld the bear rider comes to the aide of the areosan city. Rawrgylds family previously ruled the frostwings prior to Thrag deposing the line in an honor duel. Now, with a wounded queen and the appearance of weakness, the challenge is open and Rawrgyld challenges Ra'al for the crown as Queen Rashingot is ready to pass it to her son. On the eve of the duel, someone poisoned Ra'al and he could not defend the title, leaving his mother to honor the challenge. She nearly won, but lost her throne and her life to the newcomer.

Before the vagha return to Balgavarr, another intrigue unfolds and Geril's hold on the council is usurped when a rival clan claims a murder in their family was carried out by the morehl prince that Coryn and Geril had allowed within their walls. Bounty hunters are in pursuit of Garesch and Marnash because of this--and at the worst timing. He is apprehended while rallying the lava elves scattered in the Wilds of Dur'Sona; the diaspora elves had opted to run from Emperor Saugor after failure to win the war against the vagha and Garesch needed their help to fight a civil war against his father.

King Rawrgyld ordered his armies to stand down against the undead in the Shadowlands. The vagha and the frostwings broke in a schism. defectors joined Ra'al and Coryn who pressed north to fight the undead general revealed to be Leisterbane, one of Death's chief emissaries since the second century of the First Age and the right hand soldier of Melkior the lich. He had been collecting corpses for a thousand years to build his army. A component of mixed forces threw in with the defectors while Geril chased his enemy: Harol, the son of Lahmyn (Lahmyn is the dwarf leading the cabal in Balgavarr.)

With Harol at large, the vagha in Tulgesh were in revolt against the elves of the selumari city and they only stepped down with the promise that justice would be delivered to Harol the black acolyte. Geril and a crew of his trusted soldiers followed him into the very heart of the World Wound in Dereh'Liandor--the place where Nekarthis nearly broke the world. There, Geril defeated him the evil traitor in battle, but losing his life in the process.

Meanwhile, Garesch escaped from prison with the help of Marnash and led a revolt against Emperor Saugor. He defeated his father, killing him in a duel, aided by the presence of his father's paranoia: dweomernull wards had been built into the throne room which prevented the intervention of magics and allowed the son an equal playing field. He took a force north almost immediately to aid his friends in the shadowlands.

Desperate to stop Leisterbane's plans, the northern forces enacted a suicide mission to protect the sacred tree, but with so much black magic at hand, and with the stubborn tree refusing to succumb, the black elder dragon Morgus Ebraxxus was summoned. The dragon had a particular grudge against Coryn and Geril's family having been slain by their ancestors on multiple occasions.

Coryn was able to free a strange dracolem creature from within the gnomish cube and used its support to smash the enemy and to stop the black dragon. While she saved her friends, Leisterbane was successful in felling the great tree which lessened the potency of all magic on Esfah and she would later learn of her father's demise.

This book may be purchased here.