QUICK LINKS: Rites of the Starling Recap by Chapter P–8 | 21–30 | 31–40 | 41–51 | 52–59 | 60–64 // Shield of Sparrows Book 1 Summary
Rites of the Starling Chapters 9–20 Summary
This chapter-by-chapter summary of Rites of the Starling by Devney Perry contains spoilers.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 9
At daybreak, Cap gives Caspia a final warning. They’ve used up more than half their food and are running low on water, and he wants to turn back. Caspia pleads for one more day. Cap gives in after she promises to forfeit her own water for the crew and agrees not to challenge him if they find nothing by tomorrow.
Xandra joins Caspia at the bow to talk about the visions disturbing her sleep. Xandra has finally started to feel the magical thrum of the ritus herself, which confirms they’re heading in the right direction. Caspia retreats to her cabin and has a vivid vision of a man and a young gray-eyed girl riding toward towering blue mountains.
When Caspia wakes up, she thinks about the girl in her dream and finds herself missing her niece. Caspia wonders if her aunt is worried about how long they’ve been gone. Then the magical pull in her chest grows so intense she feels weightless and rises onto her toes. A crew member’s shout from the deck breaks the moment. They’ve finally reached land.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 10
After the bariwolf attack, Odessa, Evie, and Brother Skore stop to camp. Odessa learns that Brother Skore serves a singular god he calls the Divine, unlike her own beliefs. She asks about their destination, and he says they’re headed for Orson Canyon. Four days later, they reach a massive gorge with towering rock walls. The stinging sensation Odessa normally feels from Brother Skore’s magic disappears once they’re deep inside.
They reach a platform overlooking a deep abyss and a waterfall. Brother Skore leads them along a narrow path through the mist into a cave hidden behind the falls. He needs Odessa’s help to find something in the tunnels and insists Evie stay behind with the horses. Odessa is terrified but agrees after he promises their next stop will be Quentis.
The tunnels glow with blue veins of light in the rock. Brother Skore tells Odessa to navigate by following the paths that cause her the most discomfort. The deeper they go, the worse Odessa’s headache gets. At a dead end, Odessa spots a small pool of black water and touches it. A surge of terrible pain shoots through her body. Brother Skore tells her she did well and reaches out for her. The moment he touches her, Odessa loses consciousness.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 11
Caspia and Xandra watch from the shore as Cap and his crew sail away. When the ship disappears, they turn their backs to the sea and face the unfamiliar land ahead. A small stream becomes their guide through vibrant hills toward a distant mountain ridge.
Partway through the hike, lightheadedness creeps in, and their footing feels unreliable. At first, they chalk it up to weeks at sea. But the dizziness only worsens the farther inland they go. Both women begin to suspect it’s not sea legs. It might be the start of their transformation.
Caspia turns the old stories over in her mind. The rite is designed to strip away everything a person feels safe holding onto so something stronger can be built in its place. The first physical change is supposed to hurt. Before they can find a spot to camp, a storm rolls in. Xandra spots a dark gap in the rock face ahead.
They climb a slick pile of wet rocks to reach it. Inside, the cavern is enormous and lined with mineral formations like rows of stone teeth. A fire is out of the question in the damp. So they settle into the dark and wait for the rain to pass.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 12
After two days unconscious, Odessa wakes in a grove. Evie is safe, but Brother Skore is already preparing to leave. He tells Odessa to follow the nearby stream to Norcrest, then push past the Harrow River to find people who can lead her to Quentis.
Odessa tries to get answers about the tunnel, but Brother Skore stays cryptic. He tells her to keep the waterfall a secret if she wants her father to stay safe and refuses to say anything more.
Brother Skore also warns Odessa about the High Priest. The man can’t be trusted, even if Ransom believes in him. Brother Skore then tells Odessa to seek out a warrior in Calandra. Then he rides off and leaves her questions about her mother unanswered.
Evie fills in what happened on the mountain. Brother Skore carried Odessa and tied her to his horse so she wouldn’t fall. Evie also saw him slip into the woods at night with a large, clear spherical artifact.
Odessa suspects Brother Skore pulled it from the pool inside the tunnel and worries she unknowingly helped him get his hands on something powerful. She helps Evie onto Freya and heads south toward Norcrest.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 13
Caspia and Xandra spend three days in the strange forest as their health slowly falls apart. They eventually collapse, convinced they’re dying, and lose consciousness in each other’s arms. Caspia wakes to a clicking sound and shakes her cousin awake. They find a road nearby, but a massive black creature blocks their path. It looks like a giant jackal covered in scales and sharp spines. More emerge from the trees and surround them.
Xandra drops to her knees as her transformation begins. Her eyes go fully black, and her teeth sharpen into fangs. She tells Caspia to run and drives her away with a snarl. Caspia flees into the woods and trips. When she looks back, one of the creatures is watching her. Caspia keeps moving until the ground runs out at the edge of a cliff above a fast-moving river. Three animals close in behind her.
One lunges. Another beast slams into it and kills it, then forces the pack to back down and takes over as leader. Caspia hopes it’s Xandra in her shifted form. Caspia tries to talk to it, but the beast growls and shoves her toward the edge. She begs Xandra to remember who she is. Only snarls come back. The beast leaps with its jaws open, and Caspia throws herself off the cliff.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 14
Odessa and Evie wake outside Norcrest when a man named Wells prods them with his boot. The local patrol has no tolerance for outsiders, so they need to move on. They grab food from a nearby garden, catch up with Wells, and ride in his wagon toward the Harrow River.
At the riverbank, they find a massive camp of travelers. The ferry operator wants a fee Odessa can’t pay. Wells covers it without being asked and waves off any talk of repayment. He tells Odessa to keep her weapon and keep Evie alive instead. On the far side, Wells points out a small cabin before he drives off. A woman named Edda lives there with a house full of children.
Edda lets Odessa and Evie sleep in a lean-to for free and feeds them dinner. That night, Odessa reads a journal entry about a pale-haired warrior who sets a falcon free in the desert and wonders if Edda is the savior she’s supposed to find.
Later, a man named Sryker walks in and introduces himself as Edda’s husband. Odessa recognizes him from another journal entry. Sryker has deep scars and wears clothing made from monster skin. He offers to guide them through the dangerous bogs to Quentis. When Odessa asks about the warrior from her story, Sryker mentions a group of hired fighters known as the Mavins.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 15
Caspia wakes up screaming from a vision of a red-haired woman trapped in a dungeon. The woman was pregnant and endured medical tests where her blood was taken. Caspia is certain it was Emery before her transformation. Caspia then finds herself in a bed inside a stone house. Someone pulled her from the water and gave her the bed while they slept in a chair.
A man named Andreas walks in and startles Caspia. He speaks a language she doesn’t recognize, but when she tells him to stop, he repeats the word back to her. Their languages share enough for basic communication.
Andreas returns Caspia’s boots and clothing, her hidden knives and jewelry still inside. As they share a meal in silence, Caspia sets a knife on the table to make clear she’s armed. Andreas laughs.
They figure out they both know parts of an ancient language. Caspia notices her magical connection to the rite has gone quiet. Her goals now are to find Xandra and track down the silver-eyed warrior who killed Emery, and for both, she needs to learn the local language.
Caspia asks Andreas where they are, and he tells her the continent is called Calandra.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 16
Odessa, Evie, and Sryker ride through the cave ginger bogs, a swampland filled with alligasks. One of the creatures bursts through a fence beside them, Freya bolts, and Faze tumbles from the saddle. Odessa fires her crossbow, but the shots barely slow the beast. Before she can act, a pale‑haired woman in silver and gray armor leaps onto the alligask and drives an ax through its skull.
From the journal entry she read to Evie, Odessa recognizes the warrior at once. The tattoos, the kohl‑lined eyes, and the star inked across her temple mark her clearly. This is the fighter Brother Skore told her to find. The woman’s group surrounds them. A man in black leather lifts Faze, and after a tense standoff, Odessa forces him to hand the tarkin back. She notices the alligask’s blood is green, proof that Lyssa has spread beyond Turah’s borders.
The man introduces himself as Jodhi and names the group the Mavins, the mercenaries Sryker had mentioned. The pale‑haired warrior is Thora.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 17
Caspia wakes from a vision of a brown‑haired woman being tested by a silver‑eyed warrior, giving her a new lead on the man she’s hunting. She’s still at Andreas’s hunting cabin in Genesis, one of five kingdoms on the continent of Calandra. Over several days, they’ve been teaching each other their languages. Andreas found Caspia unconscious on the riverbank and nursed her through five days of fever.
When Caspia tells Andreas it’s time to leave and search for Xandra, she notes her body feels stronger than before and her senses sharper, though she doesn’t yet understand why. Andreas explains that the creatures Xandra shifted into are called bariwolves, feared across the continent. There’s a clear attraction between them, but Caspia chooses not to act on it, knowing she’ll never leave if she does.
Andreas draws Caspia a map of the five kingdoms and explains the starburst markings unique to each region’s irises. Silver eyes appear nowhere in Calandra, which Caspia believes will make the warrior easier to track. She decides to head for Turah, reasoning that the fortress from her vision of Emery’s death was built from thick timber, matching what Andreas said about its people being lumbermen. She keeps this to herself.
When Andreas steps outside, Caspia understands their goodbye has already happened.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 18
Odessa, Evie, and Sryker make camp in a temporary farming village on the far side of the bogs. Sryker remarks that the number of alligask attacks was unusual, deepening Odessa’s fear that monsters are drawn to her.
Sryker says his goodbyes and rides home through the night, and Odessa warns him about the crux scout, urging him to take shelter early.
Odessa then approaches the Mavins’s camp and offers a thousand zillahs each to escort her and Evie to Quentis, to be paid on arrival. Jodhi immediately dismisses her.
As Odessa turns to leave, she mutters that the migration isn’t far off, and the group goes cold. Odessa sits with them and describes the crux scout that attacked Ellder. One man, Mose, immediately packs up to warn his family. The rest remain skeptical, with Jodhi accusing her of fabricating the story to get help for free.
Odessa storms off, but Thora calls her back and agrees to take them to Quentis, telling the men they leave at dawn. Odessa will owe a thousand zillahs on arrival.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 19
Caspia leaves at dawn and discovers Andreas has slipped away during the night, leaving a note, food, coins, and a detailed map. Not far down the road, a fenek attacks her. Unlike the gentle creatures she knows from home, this one is feral and vicious. Caspia tries to calm it with her Starling ability but fails. She runs rather than break her vow not to harm it, but the fenek catches her cloak and nearly drags her down.
Just as Caspia turns to kill the fenek, an arrow strikes the animal dead. Andreas steps out of the trees, having followed her from the cabin.
Caspia is devastated and tells Andreas that feneks are beloved pets where she comes from. He holds her while she grieves, then says there’s a village ahead and that he’ll travel with her. When she realizes he means to go all the way to Turah, he tells her in the old language that he’s fond of who she is now and wants to see who she becomes. Caspia kisses him, and they set off together.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 20
Four days into the journey from Ozarth, Odessa and Evie travel through Laine’s desert with the Mavins. Jodhi keeps asking Odessa about the crux scout, pointing out that no one on the road has heard the news.
Odessa learns that they’ll have to pass through the Evon Ravine to reach Quentis, since the Mavins chose not to risk being caught at sea during a migration.
Later, Thora cuts Jodhi off by revealing she already knows that Odessa is the Sparrow, the Gold King’s daughter. Thora intends to deliver Odessa to Quentis in exchange for a debt the Gold King will settle. Odessa accepts this, knowing it serves her purpose of getting Evie to safety. When Jodhi hints at curiosity about Evie’s identity, Odessa picks up her sword in warning. Thora only laughs, saying she likes Odessa.
The conversation ends when five Mavins return from a hunt carrying a dead kaverine, a nocturnal desert monster, its green blood seeping from fresh wounds. One of them, Golding, has deep claw marks on his leg. Odessa urgently asks if he was bitten, and when he says no, she’s visibly relieved. The Mavins demand an explanation, and Odessa decides to tell them about Lyssa.