[LMB] Chalion-esque books?

[Katherine Collett]

Try Patricia Briggs's Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood, and also Hob's  
Bargain.  The hero of the Dragon books has things in common with both  
Miles and Cazeril, I find.

I'm not sure what elements of Chalion, exactly, you're looking for,  
but here are some more possibilities from a list I keep:

Pamela Dean
                         The Secret Country
                         The Hidden Land
                         The Whim of the Dragon
             Five children (cousins) find themselves in the imaginary  
country the history of which they have spent summers enacting for  
years (at least they thought it was imaginary ...).  Involves missing  
royal children, a dear friend planning treachery, a misguided king,  
prophetic unicorns.

Greer Gilman, Moonwise

any Diana Wynne Jones

any Robin McKinley

Margaret Lovett, The Great and Terrible Quest

Joy Chant,  Red Moon, Black Mountain: More like Kay’s Fionavar  
Tapestry than anything else, but condensed, refined, and a decade or  
so earlier.

Garth Nix, Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen: Sabriel has to leave her  
boarding school and travel through the Old Kingdom and in and out of  
Death, pursued by Dead creatures but helped by Mogget, a being in the  
shape of a cat, to try to rescue her father, the Abhorsen, who has  
been trapped in Death.  She goes from one dark, cold, desperate  
situation to another.  Lirael  is not quite as dark, but the beginning  
has rather a lot of teenaged angst in both Lirael, who wants to have  
the Sight like the rest of the Clayr, and Prince Sameth, who can’t  
bear to do his duty as Abhorsen-in-waiting and read the Book of the  
Dead.  But it develops nicely, with plenty of desperate situations,  
the return of Mogget, and the addition of the Disreputable Dog.   
Completed in Abhorsen.

Turner, Megan Whalen, The Thief—almost-but-not-quite ancient Greek  
city-states; a magus is forcing Gen, the thief, to steal something  
from the gods (which the magus doesn’t believe in) for his kingdom;  
the thief does it for his own kingdom.  Beware of gods.  Sequels: The  
Queen of Attolia—heart-wringing in places, as Eugenides makes  
political moves between his Queen of Eddis and the ruthless Queen of  
Attolia.  Is he a pawn or a player?  Or are they all pawns of the  
gods?  also King of Attolia.

Katherine