I Got The Flames of Hope Early!

Alright, I just finished it, so now I can definitely say that no main character dies.

The prologue is from the POV of Raven, a Pantalan human. (I believe part of the prologue has already been in a preview, but it’s actually longer than what was in that preview.) Raven visits Vole, the guardian of the abyss, who gives her the message that she must bring a dragon to the abyss. She goes and talks to Vole’s brother, Mole, about it, even though she worries that Mole will be upset with her for breaking the rules because she is not supposed to talk to Vole (only Mole should see him, as he is is sole caretaker). Mole is not upset with her though, more so relieved as he got the same message from Vole and now he has someone to talk to about it. They try to come up with ideas of how to get a dragon to the abyss, hoping that they could get Vole back if they do so.

Chapter 1 starts with a part that had been in previews, in which Luna gives Jerboa a thank you gift (a wood engraving of them she made with her flamesilk) and the dreamvisits with Swordtail. (Not going into much detail since there’s a preview of this chapter.)

Luna and the others that had been picked for the Pantala mission are flying across the ocean. They start to fly down towards and island, with Pineapple, Tsunami, and Qibli further ahead than the others. The others hear a scream from up ahead, and Moon shouts “Qibli!” and immediately flies down to help. Sundew turns all of them invisible, except Pineapple, Tsunami, and Qibli, as they were already too far away for it to work on them (the wristbands only work for dragons within the wearer’s line of sight when being turned invisible). They fly down, invisibly, the try to help the other three, and find twenty or so HiveWings attacking them. The invisible dragons can only be heard by each other (though they cannot see each other). Sundew cannot make the others invisible without first making them all visible again, which she does not want to do because then the HiveWings would know about them all being here and she also wants to protect Sky and Wren. They use the blowguns and tranquilizer darts to try to fight them, but then a mind-controlled SilkWing comes and can tell that there are invisible dragons present by sensing their movements with his antennae. The HiveWings capture Qibli, Pineapple, Tsunami, and Moon (even though she is still invisible), but no one else. Qibli had been the one carrying the map of how to get between Pantala/Pyrrhia, but his pouch fell off and the mind-controlled SilkWing almost takes it but he is distracted by one of the HiveWings, Earwig, who has been released from mind-control by Wasp temporarily. The HiveWings leave (with the prisoners), except Wasp leaves Earwig there to watch over the still unconscious HiveWings, but Earwig does not know how to get back to Pantala and Wasp refuses to mind-control her to bring her back.

The remaining dragons argue about whether they should go rescue their friends or continue on to the abyss and hope they can save them that way. Luna, Sky, and Sundew vote for going to rescue the others immediately, while Cricket, Bullfrog, Lynx, and Wren vote for finding the abyss. In the end, Sundew and Lynx go to try to rescue them while the others go find the abyss. Cricket feels bad for Earwig and wants to leave her a map back to Pantala, which Sundew thinks is a terrible idea, but Cricket does it anyway.

Luna, Cricket, Bullfrog, Sky, and Wren wait around in the caves for a bit, as they were going to wait for Sundew and Lynx for two days before going off to the abyss without them. They are all still invisible. They explore some in the caves and Wren finds a human, Axolotl (who is the nonbinary human Tui had previously mentioned would be in the book). They observe them trying to read a dragon book, but suddenly they become uninvisible, which frightens Axolotl, but Wren talks to them and explains. Axolotl agrees to take them to a village that supposedly worships an abyss. They leave a message for Lynx and Sundew, telling them where they’ve gone, then leave, going through underground tunnels.