Chapter 15 Summary: Key Events, Character Growth, and Themes
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens with the group departing for Mount Rayuna. Shiori rides in a wooden basket designed by Wandei, carried by four of her crane brothers while one flies ahead to navigate and one stays behind to keep watch. Kiki is tucked safely inside her sleeve. The flight is high enough that rivers look like ribbons and mountains like wrinkles across the earth.
During the journey, the brothers share what they've learned about dragons and starstroke, with Kiki translating. Dragons were not always omens of good fortune, nor were they always rare visitors to land. They were mercurial and violent, often wreaking chaos in the seas, and they answered to no one—not even the gods. To temper their strength, the gods forged starstroke from three magics: strands of fate from the goddess Emuri'en's hair, the blood of stars from Lapzur (the source of an enchanter's power), and demonfire scoured from the Tambu Isles, birthplace of demons. As starstroke grew wild across Lor'yan, the dragons retreated into the sea, hiding until the gods pleaded for their help in divesting Kiata of magic and sealing demons within the Holy Mountains. In exchange, the Dragon King demanded that starstroke be contained to the summit of Mount Rayuna, where he keeps a watchful eye over it.
When they spot the mountain—steam curling from its summit, molten rivers hissing like liquid gold—powerful winds force the brothers to drop Shiori off lower on the mountain. Hasho approaches and, through Kiki, offers her a way out: if she changes her mind, she can tell him, and they'll take her home. He also asks if she wants one of the brothers to stay with her. She refuses both offers, unwilling to risk her brothers where wild magic grows rampant. Kiki insists on accompanying her despite the danger, pointing out that as a paper crane she can be folded back to life.
Shiori climbs the mountain alone, the ashes making the trek slippery. She kicks against objects too brittle to be stones and too hollow to be branches, praying they aren't bones. A tremor shakes the ground, and Kiki fears it's the Dragon King. Shiori presses on, finding the nettles: silvery green leaves with dark red veins, thorns sharp as teeth, and thick stems glowing with demonfire. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of bushes studding the mountaintop.
Her dagger fails against the nettles—the blade might as well be cutting at stone. She realizes she must pull them by hand. The pearl fragment from Seryu throbs painfully under her collar, a warning not to go farther. She repeats the mantra