Skyshade

Skyshade is the third installment of Alex Aster’s young adult fantasy romance series, the Lightlark Saga. Lightlark, which was published in 2022, centers around an event called the Centennial. Every 100 years, six rulers are invited to participate in a series of dangerous games for a chance to break the curses that afflict their realms. The series’s protagonist is 19-year-old Isla Crown, the ruler of a people called the Wildlings, who are cursed to kill anyone they fall in love with. While competing in the Centennial, Isla develops romantic feelings for both Grimshaw Malvere, the dark and brooding ruler of Nightshade, and Oro Rey, the stern and golden-haired king of Sun Isle. She also befriends Celeste, the ruler of the Starlings. Unlike the other rulers, Isla is unable to access her magical abilities and mistakenly believes that she has no supernatural powers at all. At the conclusion of Lightlark, Celeste reveals that she is actually Aurora, an ancient ruler who created the curses and who seeks to claim all of the realms’ power for herself. Isla must kill her former friend to reclaim her powers and to break the curses.