QUICK LINKS: Rites of the Starling Recap by Chapter P–8 | 9–20 | 21–30 | 31–40 | 41–51 | 52–59 // Shield of Sparrows Book 1 Summary
Rites of the Starling Chapters 60–64 Summary
This chapter-by-chapter summary of Rites of the Starling by Devney Perry contains spoilers.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 60
Caspia has completed her shift into the Starling but begins to lose control to the creature’s bloodlust, which drives her toward Andreas. The sound of her baby crying through the window above breaks through just long enough for her to regain herself. Caspia holds on until Andreas lifts his sword and drives it through her heart, fulfilling the vision she had always known would come.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 61
Two days after Caspia’s death, Andreas is still on the throne room floor, holding her body and refusing to let go. He calls Taven by the wrong name and insists Caspia is only cold and needs a blanket.
Taven brings in the baby, hoping the sight of Andreas’s daughter will break through to him. Andreas reaches toward Dess but pulls back when he sees his hands are still covered in Caspia’s blood. He orders the child taken away. When Taven urges him to let Caspia go, Andreas breaks down completely and refuses.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 62
Odessa finds her father on the throne room balcony and confronts him with her mother’s journal. He confirms everything. At Caspia’s request, he drove his sword through her heart after she shifted and killed the four Voster priests, and he has carried that grief ever since. He kept the truth from Odessa to protect her, knowing she would eventually take up her mother’s fight.
They talk through the night and into dawn. General Hawksley has long been working with the Kennin to search for the orbits, and Brother Dime has been a Kennin loyalist hidden within the Voster. The four priests Caspia killed were burned and their ashes scattered at sea, while a Kennin priest named Hain was offered as a false explanation to keep the High Priest from retaliating.
The Kennin want to return to their homeland of Kenn but are bound to Calandra by blood oaths that can only be broken by destroying all the orbits and eliminating magic entirely. Two orbits are already secured in Quentis, one in the vaults and one beneath the crypts. A third may be near Allesaria, possibly beneath the Voster sanctuary itself. No one yet knows how to destroy them.
Odessa tells her father she’s going after the remaining orbits regardless, and he accepts it. She makes clear she won’t keep any of this from Ransom. He admits he once hoped Odessa might kill Ransom, a plan he now acknowledges was a failure of judgment.
The conversation ends with him handing Odessa ten elfalter rings and the key to Ransom’s cell.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 63
Odessa slips out early and visits Alore at the infirmary with a vial of her own saliva to test against the Lyssa elixir. In the foyer, she encounters Thora and Jodhi, who reveal that her father summoned them back five days earlier and struck a deal. They’ll protect Odessa in exchange for a future chance to be free of Salem.
Then, Odessa visits the royal library, where she meets Faxon and his son Kos, two people her mother wrote about extensively. Faxon recognizes her immediately as Caspia’s daughter. Kos retrieves a second journal Caspia had hidden in the library long ago, with a note asking him to give it to her daughter someday. The journal contains more of Caspia’s visions, written in the old language.
Brother Skore appears soon after. He explains that magic is poison to the Starling bloodline, but because Odessa was born in Calandra to a Calandran father, she may react differently to shifting than her mother did.
He tells her the Lyssa infecting Ransom was almost certainly created when he was bitten by Xandra, Caspia’s cousin, who shifted into a bariwolf and never shifted back, combined with Luella’s elixir. A cure is unlikely even if magic remains, though destroying the orbits may or may not be enough to save him.
Brother Skore also tells Odessa that her mother’s visions were meant for both of them, and that the journals will lead her to the remaining orbits. Odessa asks how to destroy a god, and Brother Skore tells her the warrior she needs to find isn’t someone else. It’s her.
Rites of the Starling Chapter 64
Standing on a cliff above the sea, Odessa feels torn between the weight of everything she now knows and a desperate need for relief. Ransom finds her and holds her steady. They agree to face what lies ahead together. He tells her he loves her, the words she has waited months to hear, and she answers with the same phrase he always tells her.
As they turn to go inside, Odessa feels something new. A thrum rises in her chest, spreading from her heart to her hands. She recognizes it immediately from her mother’s journal as the same sensation Caspia described before her shift. It passes quickly, but she knows it will return. When Ransom asks if something is wrong, she tells him no. It’s a lie, and she knows it.
There’s one final vision from Caspia’s journal. A silver‑eyed warrior kneels with dark green blood on his hands as a monster bears down on him. He lays down his sword and whispers, “My queen.” before meeting his end.
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