From amazon.com:

Sixteen-year-old Dante wants nothing more than to learn to wield the nether, the magic of his world. After he steals the Cycle of Arawn, the holy book of a century-dead sect that mastered the nether, he's attacked in the streets of Bressel.

Arawn's followers aren't gone after all. In desperation, Dante hires a bodyguard, but all he can afford is an untried and big-mouthed kid named Blays. Through cunning and luck, they fend off their attackers and flee the city.

But there's no escape from the long-simmering religious war that's about to engulf their homeland--a war they'll soon find themselves fighting from within the stronghold of Arawn himself.

The White Tree is an epic fantasy of approximately 500 pages / 150,000 words.