Alex Aster’s Lightlark Saga is a romantasy series in which the central love triangle carries high political stakes. In the first book, Lightlark (2022), series protagonist Isla breaks the curses afflicting the inhabitants of her fantasy world and falls in love with Oro, the king of Lightlark. However, Grim, the ruler of the Nightshade realm, reveals that he and Isla used to be married. Grim took away her memories of their time together, but these lost memories gradually return in Nightbane (2023). Raising the love triangle’s stakes, a prophecy decrees that Isla must kill one of the two rulers she loves to save her world. When war breaks out between Lightlark and Nightshade, Isla fights alongside Oro and Lightlark, but then returns to Nightshade with Grim in an attempt to foster peace.

In Skyshade (2024), Isla falls back in love with Grim, and the two are married again. Soon after the wedding, Lark, Isla’s ancestor and one of the three founders of Lightlark, escapes from a subterranean prison and tries to destroy the world. To stop her, Isla transports herself and Lark to a world called Skyshade. In Crowntide (2025), Isla’s act of self-sacrifice forces her two lovers—once mortal enemies—into an uneasy alliance to find her.

Designed for readers of the Lightlark saga, the novellas deepen Grim and Oro’s backstories and reframe major series events by returning to them through each man’s perspective. Expanding upon the flashbacks Aster provides in Nightbane, Grim delves into the details of how the Nightshade ruler and Isla first meet, how they bond during their quest to protect his realm from monsters, and how Grim’s abusive childhood contributes to his initial apprehension about falling in love with her. This context helps the reader understand the origins of the couple’s dynamic, which has faced both inner conflict and external obstacles from the outset, a pattern that continues to play out in the main series.

Likewise, Oro’s novella informs his bond with the series’s protagonist, building upon events already established in the novels and offering new insights. Because the main series is told in third-person and employs Isla as a viewpoint character, Oro’s first-person narration presents thoughts and emotions that aren’t divulged in Lightlark. This is especially relevant for his relationship with Isla, as he strives to hide his true feelings for her beneath a stern, cold facade:

I’m cruel to her as a reminder to myself that I should not care. I’m     cruel because I want her to hate me—because if she ever didn’t […] if      she ever wanted me a fraction of the ways I want her, I’m not sure I  would be able to survive it (451).

Oro’s love for Isla isn’t revealed until the climax of Lightlark, when he draws upon their bond to save her with her own magic. In contrast, the novella depicts the Sunling’s immediate attraction to her and his incremental progress towards embracing his desire, which recontextualizes all of their interactions during the Centennial. The companion novellas build upon the main series by illuminating the focal characters’ pasts and setting the stage for the love triangle’s complex future.