The Tomb of Dragons (The Cemeteries of Amalo, #3) by Katherine Addison Format: eARC
Source: supplied by publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, paperback, ebook, audiobook
Genres: fantasy, fantasy mystery
Series: Cemeteries of Amalo #3, Chronicles of Osreth #4
Pages: 352
Published by Tor Books on March 11, 2025
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org, Better World Books
Goodreads
Thara Celehar has lost his ability to speak with the dead. When that title of Witness for the Dead is gone, what defines him?
While his title may be gone, his duties are not. Celehar contends with a municipal cemetery with fifty years of secrets, the damage of a revethavar he’s terrified to remember, and a group of miners who are more than willing to trade Celehar’s life for a chance at what they feel they’re owed.
Celehar does not have to face these impossible tasks alone. Joining him are his mentee Velhiro Tomasaran, still finding her footing with the investigative nature of their job; Iäna Pel-Thenhior, his beloved opera director friend and avid supporter; and the valiant guard captain Hanu Olgarezh.
Amidst the backdrop of a murder and a brewing political uprising, Celehar must seek justice for those who cannot find it themselves under a tense political system. The repercussions of his quest are never as simple they seem, and Celehar’s own life and happiness hang in the balance.
My Review:
Once upon a time, I picked up the first book in this series because its central character, Thara Celehar, was instrumental in enabling The Goblin Emperor Maia to ascend his throne – alive and in one piece.
The Goblin Emperor is a story of high-stakes political drama and low-places skullduggery, the battle of a reviled outsider to assume the ultimate insider’s position as Emperor. Which he does, in part thanks to Celehar.
But Celehar himself is not a political operative. He’s not even an insider of the religious hierarchy that he himself inhabits as a prelate of the deity Ulis, and more importantly in his calling as a Witness for the Dead.
A calling which has gifted him with the ability to literally speak to the spirits of the recently departed, to help them pass on by carrying out their final wishes, by getting justice for those who have been wronged by the ones they left behind – and by, if necessary, forcing the spirits that have refused to leave to GO.
But in the previous book, The Grief of Stones, in the process of sending on a ghoul who has refused all previous attempts to get it to cross over, Celehar achieves his aim, stops the series of murders that the ghoul has perpetrated – but loses his gift in the trauma.
As this story opens, Celehar is reckoning with that loss of purpose, as he does not know what to do with himself without his duties. He’s also more than a bit worried about his living situation, as his income depends on him doing a job he literally no longer has the ability to perform.
While this uneasy situation settles – even if Celehar doesn’t – his superior in the temple hierarchy has given him an assignment as a sort of ecclesiastical troubleshooter in the city he once served.
The thing about Celehar, as modest and utterly self-effacing as he is, is that he’s an excellent troubleshooter because he’s such a magnet for trouble that it can’t resist finding him no matter what duty he’s ostensibly performing. Which is precisely what happens in The Tomb of Dragons, as in the midst of carrying out his duties to his archprelate he is kidnapped and literally tossed into a witnessing that is so deep and so vast it has the potential to topple the empire itself.
Thara Celehar has vowed to witness for 192 murdered dragons before the Emperor himself. Unless, of course, Celehar gets murdered first.
Escape Rating A+: I’m in a bit of a conundrum, as this series FEELS – emphasis on FEEL – like a cozy fantasy mystery even though the things that happen – especially the murders and the politics and the political murders – aren’t all that cozy. I think it’s that Thara Celehar is a very cozy and comfortable sort of person – in spite of just how uncomfortable he often is within himself.
I think that Celehar is what makes the series feel so cozy because he’s honestly just going about his day, doing his job, living his small life. It’s just that the way he does his very best to get his tasks done – no matter how seemingly mundane they are at the outset, feels safe and comfy because that’s what he’s looking for.
Even though, as this story begins, he’s really worried about what will happen to him if his calling doesn’t come back. So we feel for him.
But as he goes about his day and his work and getting dragged out of his rooms by his friends who won’t let him wallow by himself, things just seem to happen to him. Often big, huge, empire-shattering things. Nearly always in spite of himself.
As much fun as it is watching Celehar navigate ecclesiastical bureaucracy and 50 years of dead red tape – and it is surprisingly absorbing and, well, comforting – the center of this story is the case that he is literally dropped into, where he’s pushed down a mineshaft and ends up witnessing for all those dead dragons.
The initial circumstances are harrowing, but it’s the way that Celehar handles those circumstances that literally and figuratively calls back to his small but significant contribution to The Goblin Emperor – as well as bringing the emperor himself, Edrehesivar, back to the story in person.
The dragons’ case is groundbreaking, heartbreaking, and potentially as deadly for Celehar as it has already been for the dragons themselves. The easy thing would be for Celehar to pretend his conversation with the dead dragon never happened – but his conscience and his honor won’t let him do that.
It’s his quiet courage, his need to do the right thing, that gives this story both its tension – as that decision is contested on all sides – and its heart and soul as he perseveres in spite of the forces arrayed against him.
That his steadfastness is rewarded made The Tomb of Dragons the perfect ending to The Cemeteries of Amalo series. But if it turns out that this is not an ending after all, this reader would be thrilled to return to the world of The Goblin Emperor with Thara Celehar again. And again.
