Chanters of Tremaris

For her entire life, Calwyn has lived among the priestesses in the city of Antaris, which is surrounded by a wall of pure ice created and perserved by the priestesses via chantments (or magical singing that allows them (in this case) to summon ice ('ice call')). One day, while singing her chantments to mend the Wall, she comes across an injured stranger named Darrow. Soon she finds herself joining him on a journey to stop Samis, a powerful singer of chantments whose goal is to learn all nine songs from the Nine Powers in order to conquer the world and unify it under one ruler--himself.

There are three books in the Chanters of Tremaris Trilogy by Kate Constable.

Tropes used in Chanters of Tremaris include:
  • A House Divided: The crew of the Fledgewing, after Xanni dies.
  • An Ice Person: The Daughters of Taris, priestesses who learn the art of ice-call, or ice chantments.
  • Annoying Arrows: Double subverted. Mica is extremely worried when Trout takes an arrow in the ribs, but he's able to run and get Calwyn perfectly fine afterward.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Trout dishes out a lot of this in The Singer of All Songs.
  • Badass Normal: Xanni and Tonno, the sailors who have kept the Fledgewing seaworthy; Trout, who especially comes in handy at the end, when he destroys the orb absorbing all the Nine Powers that Samis wants.
  • Berserk Button: The pirate captain makes the mistake of insulting Mica's grandmother. Idiot.
  • But Not Too Black: Subverted with Halasaa.
  • Call Back: In The Tenth Power, Mica references the first time Calwyn showed her ice, and event which occurred in the first book.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Trout suffered the effects of an experiment gone bad in his past, culminating in an explosion that left him deaf to sounds above a certain range in pitch. This fact comes back to haunt Samis, whose favourite tactic and primarily feared ability is to use the extremely high-pitched chantments of Seeming (read: illusion).
  • Comically Missing the Point: Trout's exclamation of, "What are you doing? This is no time to start singing!" Justified, as he doesn't know chantments are actually real at that point.
  • Curtains Match the Window: Mica has Hair of Gold and Eyes of Gold.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Ice-call is the power of dark, cold, and death, but it's still not evil at all. Heck, our protagonist is an ice priestess.
  • Dark-Skinned Blond: Mica is also described as tan.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Mica isn't very fond of Calwyn, at first.
  • Discard and Draw: At the end of The Waterless Sea when Calwyn over exerts herself and wakes up unable to make anything happen with her chantment.
  • Divine Race Lift: Calwyn is priestess to a female deity.
  • Elemental Powers: The Nine Powers, depending on how far you've gotten through the last book. Ice/Darkness, Fire/Light, Wind, Iron,--hold on, now--Becoming, Tongue, Beasts, Seeming, and Goddess/the Great Power/the Power of all that is. The Tenth Power: is the awesome might of writing in general, and musical notation in the specific, which grants the world of Tremaris the ability to record and teach the chantments without resorting to oral tradition and memory.
  • Fantastic Racism: People who have knowledge of chantments aren't exactly loved...
  • Five-Man Band
  • Flat Earth Atheist: Trout starts out scorning the idea of chantments and the gods, even after being attacked by Samis. Although this is a Justified Trope, as he can't hear high-pitched sounds like the Power of Seeming due to an accident, so the chantments didn't affect him. Eventually, he gets better.
  • Frying Pan of Doom: During the pirate raid, Trout grabs two saucepans as weapons.
  • Genki Girl: Gilly. Interestingly enough, she's still portrayed as practical.
  • Glamour Failure: Samis' Power of Seeming is unable to affect Trout because an explosive accident from his past left him unable to hear sounds above a certain range. With the songs of seeming being the highest pitched Powers, ranging about falsetto, he does not even notice the chantment going on.
  • Healing Hands: People can use the Power of Becoming in this way.
  • Heroic BSOD: Tonno falls into a mild one of these after his brother dies.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Xanni gets killed while trying to save Calwyn and Trout from Samis. His brother, Tonno, doesn't take it too well.
  • Info Dump: Marna's lecture to Calwyn about the other Powers gives us a lot of information in not a lot of time.
  • Long Lost Sibling: Quasi-Subverted in that Calwyn and Halasaa look nothing like each other.
  • Love Epiphany: Trout to Mica, when she dies.
  • Magic Dance: The Power of Becoming
  • Magic Music: The other Powers of ~ (Ice, Fire, Iron, etc.). The Chanters of Tremaris aren't called such because they just like to engage in a little singing while not on their adventures.
  • The Magocracy: Antaris is ruled by the priestesses, who all have the Power of Ice. Because of this it is also a...
  • Matriarchy: since men are generally incapable of singing the high notes necessary for Ice Call.
  • May-December Romance: Occcurs between Calwyn (16 or 17) and Darrow (late 20s to 30), though on the cover art of The Tenth Power he appears a bit younger. Also occurs briefly between Calwyn and Samis. He's nearly forty...
  • Messy Hair: Trout sports this to go with his 'absentminded inventor' persona.
  • Mutually Exclusive Magic: It's originally thought that only one individual in the whole world, the eponymous Singer of All Songs, had the power to learn every chantment.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The crew of the Fledgwing fights their way to the tower where Samis is in order to take him down, only to find the Chantments they used have been helping him to bring the Nine Powers under his control.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Justified in that the Palace of Cobwebs didn't actually have anything holding it up other than continuous ironcraft. Generally things will continue to exist after being sung into that state (i.e. the Ice Wall around Antaris, which has to be maintained but doesn't automatically vanish).
  • Noble Savages: The Tree People.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Darrow doesn't remember his real name because everyone from his early childhood called him 'Mouse'. His current name is even just a contraction of another nickname, 'Gold Arrow', the name of his family's boat.
  • Planet of Hats: Many of the countries are depicted this way.
  • Proud Warrior Race: The Tree People.
  • Psychic Powers: The Tree People's form of communication involves talking telepathically into people's minds.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The Samis-fighting crew of the Fledgewing is pretty much patched together of whomever they happened to meet and save the life of on the way.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Trout tries to do this soon after his arrival on the Fledgewing.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Between Xanni and Tonno, the former being easy-going and light-hearted and the latter being more serious and down to earth.
  • Switching POV: The vast majority of the series is third-person limited point of view centering on Calwyn. However, Darrow and Trout also get turns when Constable needs to show a scene Calwyn is absent for.
  • Taking The Flying Knife: Xanni does this to save Darrow.
  • Token Minority: Mica and Halasaa are the only main characters described as tan and dark, respectively.
  • True Companions: Calwyn & Co.
  • Tsundere: Mica.
  • The Wall Around the World: The above mentioned giant ice wall that surrounds Antaris.
  • We Can Rule Together: Samis offers this to Calwyn. She refuses.
    • He also first said this to Darrow.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Mica calls Calwyn out for wanting to give up the fight against Samis.
  • Wham! Line: "Not me! MICA!"
    • And from The Singer of All Songs: "The attack came without warning."
  • Wig, Dress, Accent: Keela. But she employs a turban and some colored contacts instead.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: Subverted. Calwyn comes home to a very, very changed Antaris and has to hide from Tamen in a barn, but soon her home is returned to more or less its old state.

(Page largely stolen from the The Singer of All Songs page, which should eventually redirect here)

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