STRIKE THE ZITHER
cliffnotes

Since my original vision for STZ amounted to a 700+ page book that included much of SOUND THE GONG’s plot, I deeply believe both books are best experienced back to back. SOUND THE GONG is largely a pay-off book, where dominos set up in STZ are now going to fall. Conversations will be referenced, names murmured mid-slumber will come back to haunt. If you reread STZ right before STG, you’ll pick up on a lot more foreshadowed events and the pain will be that much sharper :’). But if you’re pressed for time, then below is the cliffnotes version of STZ.

INTRO

An orphan for as long as she can remember, eighteen-year-old Zephyr has built a name for herself as the best strategist of the realm. She can trace the paths of stars, foretell weather patterns nine times out of ten, and execute the 36 Stratagems in her sleep. Thinking herself a god, above warriors and peasants alike, Zephyr never thought she’d serve a lordess like Ren. Without a fiefdom or trained troops, Ren is the only lordess committed to freeing empress Xin Bao from Miasma’s clutches—a fool’s errand. And yet for some inexplicable reason, Zephyr is drawn to Ren and concocts a plan called the Rising Zephyr Objective for her success:

Ally with Cicada in the Southlands.
Establish a stronghold in the Westlands.
Defeat Miasma and free the empress.

CHAPTER BY CHAPTER SUMMARIES

The following was originally written by my wonderful copyeditor Jackie Dever and has been adapted here.

Something from Nothing: Zephyr, Ren’s only strategist, sends Lotus to confront their empire pursuers with an illusory demonstration of strength. While helping to evacuate commonfolk from Miasma’s approach, Zephyr falls from her horse. She dreams of being separated from her sister. When she wakes, she finds that they’ve made it to safety in Hewan, one of many towns that support Ren. At dinner, Ren’s swornsisters Cloud and Lotus mock Zephyr for falling off her horse and not able to hold her liquor. Zephyr escapes them and meets up with Ren; they go to check on the commonfolk rescued earlier in the day. Ren and her warriors are fighting against Miasma, whom the young Empress Xin Bao has requested Ren to help liberate her from. As part of the Xin clan, Ren shares blood with Empress Xin Bao. Eight years ago, a new star, which represents a new god, appeared in the sky. Some say it belongs to Ren, but Zephyr doesn’t believe in gods. Later that night Zephyr smells smoke and knows that Miasma is coming.

A Knifed Smile: Before Zephyr can stop her, Lotus rides out first to confront Miasma. Knowing that she needs to save Ren’s swornsister and fend off Miasma, Zephyr requests twenty warriors to confront Miasma and her troops. She tells General Tourmaline to feed poisonous yew leaves to the horses and ensure that she, Zephyr, receives blame. She then rides out to confront Miasma, who has captured Lotus. Zephyr claims to be defecting to the empire, offering the death of Ren’s horses as evidence. Lotus curses Zephyr out. That, and Cloud’s pursuit of Zephyr the “traitor”, bolsters Zephyr’s facade. Convinced, Miasma lets Cloud go, claiming that there will come a day when she recruits the warrior too. She then takes Zephyr and Lotus with her to her base—Zephyr as her new strategist, and Lotus as a prisoner.

Kingdom of Miracles: At Miasma’s base, Zephyr convinces Miasma’s advisors to attack the Southlands instead of Ren. Secretly, she plans to use the trip South to strike an alliance with the Southlands. But as Zephyr exits the discussion, someone grabs her wrist, pins her to a column, and claims that they know what she is planning.

Glissando: The person who’s grabbed her is Crow, Miasma’s strategist. He suspects that her defection is fake. He invites her to prove her honesty by playing zither in conversation with him. Mid-duet, Zephyr thinks about how zither-playing is the one skill she hasn’t yet mastered; she can’t connect to the music in a way her previous mentor always wanted. Miasma interrupts the duet to tell Crow and Zephyr that they will be part of the delegation to the Southlands, which is just want Zephyr wanted; . Before leaving, Zephyr visits Lotus in the prison barracks to tell her the truth—that her defection is a front—and encourages Lotus to fight in the ring to earn Miasma’s favor. The trip South takes two weeks. When she and Crow arrive and meet with Cicada, Zephyr discovers that the Southlands lordess is accompanied by Zephyr’s own sister, whom she hasn’t seen in six years.

The First of November: Ku looks angry when she recognizes Zephyr. Zephyr pretends to make a case for Cicada and Southlands joining the empire, which Cicada rejects, declaring war on the North. Zephyr knows she’ll need to be more explicit to plant the idea of alliance with Ren in Cicada’s head. When she tries to leave the junk to meet with Cicada, Crow intercepts her to offer her tea, and she realizes he has poisoned her. She’ll have to stay close to him in order to continue receiving the antidote in the tea.

A Cicada’s Shell: Zephyr sneaks back into the pavilion to find Cicada. She encounters her sister, who refers to herself not as Ku but as November. Ku has become Cicada’s strategist. Zephyr admits her loyalty to Ren and encourages Cicada to ally with her. Unconvinced, Cicada takes her to a hidden lake where the corpses of pirates who killed her sister have been left to grow flora. A young pirate boy is chained in the middle while monks chant. Zephyr sees this as a sign not of effective intimidation, but of personal rage. Using the lordess’s emotions against her, Zephyr finally convinces Cicada to give her three days to deliver one hundred thousand arrows, a gift to seal the alliance. Zephyr stakes her life on the goal.

Borrowing Arrows: Zephyr sets up an illusion of attacking Southern ships, which Miasma’s forces send arrows to overtake. Zephyr and Crow row across the river as arrows strike the straw men on the Southern ships. Zephyr is confident she and Crow are safe, because of the parabolic curve of the arrows, but hasn’t accounted for humans tiring and shooting at lower angles. Crow shoves her down in the boat, and when she comes to beneath him, he doesn’t get up. He has been shot.

Link by Link: Crow will survive with appropriate rest. Miasma offers Zephyr command of the Northern navy, which she rejects, but she uses her influence to convince Miasma to link the junks to stabilize them. She also convinces Miasma to let her go to Cicada, ostensibly to bring back defectors from the Southern navy who might wish to join the empire’s fleet. When Zephyr goes to see Crow in his cabin, she finds the antidote to the poison he’s been using on her in his cloak pocket; she decides not to take it, waiting for a better moment instead. Crow tells her he saved her because he likes her. Skeptical, but sympathetic, Zephyr requests a zither and plays for him a song about a deity and a scholar who fall in love, to disastrous consequences.

A Southeast Zephyr: Zephyr learns the gain of arrows falls one short of 100,000, but Cicada gives her one to complete the count and declares an alliance with Ren. She promises her people they will regain all territory lost, beginning with the Marshlands, something Zephyr never promised. Cicada leads her to a watchtower and invites her to leave Ren’s service for her own. Zephyr declines and then climbs the tower to learn that Ren was there listening. Ren has come after Zephyr trusting that her defection was part of a plan. Ren will contribute ten thousand strong Cicada’s cause with the help of her uncle in the Westlands. Lotus and the twenty soldiers who initially accompanied Zephyr to meet Miasma have already escaped. Zephyr is relieved to hear, but her meeting with Ren is interrupted by Ku; alone with her sister, Ku reveals to Zephyr that she stole the final arrow, an act that almost killed Zephyr. When pressed on why, Ku insists that she is not Zephyr’s sister, to Zephyr’s longstanding confusion and anger.

A Short Song: To Miasma’s knowledge, the so-called defectors will join her in three days; the day will actually be an attack on her navy. Cicada’s artisans have made Zephyr a bottle of pills identical to Crow’s, so that she can swap them. But he refuses to see her, keeping to his cabin. Miasma hosts a feast at which a spy for Cicada is found and steamed to death. Miasma declares it the only fitting execution for traitors. Miasma then composes a poem about their imminent victory over Cicada; Zephyr offers to compose a song for it. At its conclusion, Crow appears and helps her away from the party, insisting that she take supplies and escape. Zephyr refuses to go and kisses him to silence the protests. While entangled, she reaches into his cloak for the antidote to swap out.

Before It All Burns: Zephyr composes a letter to Crow, in which she outlines the inferno that’s about to swallow Miasma’s navy, expresses some regret, and finishes with “may we meet in another life.”

Battle of the Scarp: The plan to burn Miasma’s navy is underway. As Ren and Cicada fight at the front lines, Lotus takes a cohort of Ren’s troops to block Miasma’s retreat at one of the passes. She also takes Zephyr with her, mistakenly thinking that Zephyr would want to see the action. At the pass, the two of them are ambushed by forces in empire gear. Lotus goes down, and Zephyr follows in suit, killed by an arrow to the spine while futilely trying to save Lotus for Ren.

What Is Written: Zephyr wakes in a vaguely familiar place surrounded by cloud and pink sky, where a snake-woman welcomes her home. She assures Zephyr she isn’t dead, but when Zephyr escapes her, she falls into a scene in which Ren appears to be mourning her and cannot see or hear her. The snake-woman joins her, pleading with her to return to the sky palace; she identifies herself as Zephyr’s sister. She tells Zephyr they are gods. The star that appeared in the sky eight years ago was Zephyr’s. She was able to control the weather in her human form because she is a sky deity. In order to help her remember, Nadir shatters her human form in effigy. Zephyr remembers that many years ago, she played a prank that resulted in mass starvation. As punishment, she was stripped of her memories and powers and banished into the body of Pan Qilin, a girl who died from the resulting famine. However, Ku, Qilin’s sister, saw her real sister’s spirit leave as a ghost before Zephyr was able to take over; Ku therefore knows that whoever reanimated Qilin isn’t her real sister, explaining her distrust. Now that Zephyr has served her punishment, she’s regained her memories, but not her powers. To win them back, she must demonstrate to the Masked Mother that she will not interfere with the human world. Despite doing that, she is still emotionally connected to humans.

A World Apart: Angry that Zephyr is still remembering the humans, Nadir cages Zephyr in clay to keep her from them. Dewdrop tries to demonstrate that serving Ren was Zephyr’s fate, not a choice she made. Zephyr rejects this truth; angry that the gods are required to behave neutrally when this wasn’t always the case, she breaks from her clay prison and jumps back to earth. She visits important people from her human past, from Crow (whom she witnesses murmuring a name in her sleep) to Ku, and witnesses an underground meeting dedicated to ousting Ren’s uncle, Xin Gong, and installing Ren in his place as governor of the West. Zephyr deduces the following: “We won the Battle of the Scarp. We forced Miasma to retreat, even if we didn’t successfully capture her. Ren went west with our troops to return Xin Gong’s, and Xin Gong beseeched her to stay. An about face, but that’s what happens when an army successfully defeats Miasma’s.” Zephyr visits Ren last and finds her depressed at Lotus’s bedside. Lotus’s spirit has gone, but her body is alive. Zephyr decides to inhabit her in order to bring Ren back to herself and help her complete the Rising Zephyr Objective.

In Her Name: As Lotus, Zephyr goes to Ren, who is stunned but thrilled by her swornsister’s return to health. At a party in her honor, Zephyr recognizes Sikou Hai, one of Xin Gong’s adopted sons, as the leader seeking to install Ren as governor. Zephyr goes after him to learn about the nature of his support for Ren. But Sikou Hai, seeing only a brute warrior, writes her off and leaves her to his brother, Sikou Dun, who insults Ren, leading Zephyr to challenge him to a fistfight.

Two Lordesses in a Room: In the morning, Zephyr learns the Southlanders are on their way to meet with Ren. She wants to sit in on the meeting but forgets that she agreed to fight Sikou Dun at the time of the meeting. After she is badly beaten, Cloud intervenes and Zephyr stumbles to the meeting to listen surreptitiously. Unaccustomed to Lotus’s larger frame, she falls against the door and reveals herself.

Sworn: Upon waking, Zephyr learns that the Southlanders came to request the Marshlands from Ren. Zephyr knows Ren needs the territory, and is relieved to hear from Ren herself that she declined, Ren’s reason being that she is not authorized to give away the land, since she’s not governor. Making her governor is just what Zephyr wants though—establishing a stronghold in the West is step two of the Rising Zephyr Objective—and to her dismay, Ren refuses Sikou Hai’s offer to help her rise. Knowing Sikou Hai’s support would be valuable, Zephyr continues to try to gain his trust but can’t. She continues to experience awkward misadventures in Lotus’s body and is eventually joined by Dewdrop in bee form, who tries to help. At the end of a horseback ride, Zephyr hears news that Miasma’s strategist is in the area.

Of a Feather: Crow wants to pay his respects at Zephyr’s shrine and leaves her a peacock fan as an offering. Zephyr follows him on the way out and interrogates him on why he really came. His answer is frustratingly vague, and when Zephyr returns to the shrine, she finds that Cloud has followed her. Cloud, still thinking Zephyr is Lotus, tells her that she shouldn’t feel the need to act differently and that she’s fine just the way she is. Through Cloud’s unconditional declaration of friendship, Zephyr learns that Lotus thought of Zephyr as a friend—and Cloud has Zephyr’s letter to Crow written before the attack that prove that Zephyr was only a snake. After Cloud reads the letter out loud to drive home the point, Zephyr breaks the fan gifted by Crow to demonstrate her Lotusness.

No One’s Sky: Zephyr wakes in the night and takes Rice Cake for a ride. She encounters Crow on his way back to Miasma. He’s playing the zither, and he offers her a turn. Zephyr is reluctant to try as Lotus, but to her surprise, she’s able to unlock an almost magical connection to the music when she plays. Before, from the body of Qilin, her qi was sealed off by the Masked Mother. This seal prevented her from connecting with the zither music to create visions, a power that other skilled zither players, like Crow, can access. Startled, Zephyr stops playing after one note. She tells Crow that Zephyr liked him, which Crow finds chuckles at, then muses over how some people never leave. The next thing Zephyr knows, she’s fallen asleep; she wakes with Crow’s cloak left over her shoulders. At dinner, Xin Gong intimates that hosting Ren and her forces is dangerous, as it pits him against Miasma. Frustrated that he is governor still, Zephyr takes matters into her own hands; she collects Zephyr’s zither from her shrine and goes to Sikou Hai, who is a worshipper of Zephyr. Wielding this fact, Zephyr promises Sikou Hai he can play Zephyr’s zither if he comes with her. She duets with him, and in the resulting connection, she learns that Sikou Hai has always been treated secondary to his larger brother. Impressed by her skill with the zither, Sikou Hai comes to see the warrior “Lotus” in a different light and agrees to involve her in his underground meetings to raise Ren as governor of the Westlands.

Corpse and Soul: On her way to her first underground meeting, Zephyr runs into Ren by the Westlands cemetery. Ren reveals that her physician mother was driven out by Xin Gong after he learned of a prophecy that claimed Ren would one day betray the clan. Ren’s mother spent her remaining years treating people across the land, eventually dying in a typhoid epidemic. This is why Ren won’t betray her uncle and take his governorship for himself: to prove he was wrong in casting her mother out. Saddled with this knowledge, Zephyr enters Sikou Hai’s underground meeting and ends up commandeering it, encouraging the gathered supporters of Ren to take the Westlands by force in Ren’s name but without her involvement, allowing her to maintain her honor. The plan is to assassinate Xin Gong at his fortieth birthday celebration. Initially all attendees are masked, but after Zephyr reveals herself, so do the others, and one of these is Tourmaline. Tourmaline determines that Lotus is actually Zephyr, and pulls Zephyr aside after the meeting to express her joy at Zephyr’s return. Bolstered by an ally and friend, Zephyr carries on, acting as Lotus during the day, attending these underground meetings, and sneaking away at night to play the zither to clear her mind. On one of these nighttime getaways though, she’s followed by Cloud.

Hunt: After Cloud catches Zephyr playing the zither as Lotus, Zephyr is forced to come clean about taking Lotus’s body. Cloud is furious and hurt and fights Zephyr on the training grounds; Zephyr purposefully loses the fight to emotionally manipulate Cloud into keeping her secret. Everyone goes hunting at Xin Gong’s invitation. Ren shoots a deer and offers Xin Gong the kill; Xin Gong asks Sikou Han to accept it as a dowry and announces that the two will marry tomorrow.

First Blood: Zephyr realizes that the marriage will be used to keep Ren from gaining control of the land. If the plan to kill Xin Gong goes forward as intended, Ren’s honor will be questioned, suggesting that she backed the uprising to get out of the wedding. Zephyr decides to leak the coup to Sikou Dun, letting him know that source of the coup is not Ren but his brother, Sikou Hai. Then, behind Sikou Dun’s back, Zephyr removes Sikou Hai from his brother’s killing path and dumps him into the forest, knowing he won’t be found—and won’t return until the time of the wedding ceremony.

Guests of Honor: When Sikou Hai finally makes it back to the Westlands on foot, his brother accuses him of planning to assassinate their adopted father and stabs him, instigating the coup independently of Ren, as Zephyr intended. Amid the battle, Zephyr realizes the Masked Mother has appeared in the form of a qilin. Xin Gong is killed, as planned, and is Ren hailed as the new governor. Sikou Dun succumbs to his injuries; Sikou Hai, miraculously, survives his stab wound, but is left in a coma.

The Enemy Unseen: Accidentally reading Sikou Hai’s qi at his bedside, Zephyr sees his motivation for supporting Ren: her mother helped save his life, and he vowed to help her daughter when he could. Ren, infuriated by the coup that has killed her uncle, his adopted son, and left another half-dead, confronts her swornsisters Cloud and “Lotus”: to Zephyr’s surprise, Cloud takes credit for the coup and accepts Ren’s punishment for it: banishment to the Marshlands. When Zephyr asks Cloud why lie, Cloud admits that while she doesn’t like Zephyr’s strategies, they’re needed to help Ren rise through the realm. Zephyr is needed by Ren’s side, and so Cloud would rather take the fall for her. Touched, Zephyr visits her shrine with Cloud. Inside, Zephyr looks over her possessions, recovered from Qilin’s body where it fell in the pass. She sees her robes, her zithers, and notes that only her hair clasp is missing. Finally, she looks over the arrow that killed her, and notices that it’s one that she gained for the South from the empire. Although the ambushing fighters wore empire garb, it is now clear that they were actually from the South, and the South has betrayed their alliance with Ren.

Intermezzo (Cicada): Cicada meets with Miasma to seal their new alliance, as Zephyr predicted. Unbeknownst to Zephyr though, Crow has been spying for the South. Miasma is, according to Cicada, the secret sponsor of the Fen pirates.