Rites of the Starling

Sparrow Wolfe's freedom was decided by five kings in an underground cellar.

Sparrow Wolfe's freedom was decided by five kings in an underground cellar. After a devastating crux migration, Calandra's rulers forged a treaty to bind their kingdoms together—through trade, through oaths, through her. Sparrow, the only princess of age, became a pawn for peace: betrothed to Tanis Oak of Genesis, a king who despised her family. One by one, each ruler sliced open his palm and signed in blood. A Voster priest sealed the magic, making every vow unbreakable on pain of death. Sparrow signed last, the scratch of her quill quick as an arrow through her heart. Tanis marched out without a word. The High Priest declared it done. And the Shield of Sparrows swallowed a young woman whole.

A Voster priest separates Odessa from Ransom after the crux attack

Ransom arrives at Treow to find it deserted—no Odessa, no Evie, no one. Cathlin brings bloodied knives from the streets of Ellder and something worse: the crux scout shifted into a woman with Odessa's hair before it died. Meanwhile, Brother Dime has spirited Odessa and four-year-old Evie out of the dungeons on horseback, heading east toward Ozarth instead of Treow. Odessa begs to turn back, but the priest takes the reins without a word. She can feel his magic crawling across her skin—a sensation no one else perceives—and she has no weapons, no map, and no way to know if Ransom survived. She traces the scar on her palm and repeats the only prayer that keeps her moving: he's alive.

A Starling princess abandons Nelfinex to avenge her murdered sister

In the palace of Showe on the continent of Kenn, Caspia has dreamed of her sister Emery's death six times—slain by a silver-eyed warrior in a fortress of fallen trees. Her aunt, Queen Oleana, dismisses the visions as nonsense. But a thrum has started pulsing through Caspia's chest, pulling her across the Marixmore Ocean: the call of the ritus, the rite that transforms a Quiescent into a full Starling shapeshifter. Caspia sneaks from the palace wearing Emery's stolen elfalter rings, hires a pirate named Cap, and sails into the unknown. Her cousin Xandra stows away, having felt the same call. Together they abandon everything, bound for a continent no Starling has visited in generations—and one the Starling may have cursed.

Odessa reads a snakebite tale, then watches it unfold before her Brother Skore, a second Voster in pale blue robes, arrives to replace Dime as Odessa's escort. He begrudgingly teaches her the old language so she can read Luella's mysterious journal—a book embossed with a winged emblem matching Odessa's necklace. Its pages contain vivid stories: a woman who…