The mountain range dividing Alorria and its neighbors symbolizes the perceived divisions between people. When Mina ponders her desire to see the mountains, she remembers her mother’s dismissive thoughts about them: “Who cared about the other side of the mountains—it was full of outsiders” (35). This perception of non-Alorrians as “outsiders” suggests that those beyond them are wholly different and therefore unworthy of concern. However, when Mina meets the so-called “outsiders” and visits the outpost to learn about the storms, “Mina was surprised to see that it was beautiful. The mountain itself was exposed rock with a few twisted pine trees wedged into the cracks, but the valley at its feet was overrun with green” (231). Mina’s surprise implies that she had internalized the perception that the other side would be barren or inferior.

The more that Mina interacts with “the outsiders,” her understanding deepens and the portrayal of the mountains shifts. On the morning they rescue those at the outpost, Mina “saw a few clouds brewing far away, obscuring the peaks of the mountains” (270). The description of the mountain as “obscured” suggests that the imagined division between people has been removed. This is reflected in the action Mina and her friends undertake, for they do not care about the borders and perceive their shared humanity with the supposed “outsiders.” Then, after Eione speaks at the festival, Mina recognizes that “[j]ust because mountains surrounded them didn’t mean they were separated from the rest of the world. Their sky was also everyone else’s sky” (291). In this moment, the mountains represent perceived divisions while Mina knows that the people beyond the peaks are not different from the Alorrians.