Isla unleashes devastating magical powers during battle to save Grim's life, killing hundreds and sacrificing herself in the process.

Grim binds his life and the fate of all Nightshade to Isla's, resurrecting her but making her survival critical to his entire realm.

Isla commissions a blacksmith to forge shademade bracelets that seal away her dangerous powers, fearing her own uncontrollable emotions.

Isla and Grim undertake a perilous climb up the prophet-followers' mountain to seek answers about the storms ravaging Nightshade.

A prophet-follower named Eta reveals that Nightshade's deadly storms can be stopped by closing a hidden portal Isla and Grim never knew existed.

The augur tells Isla she will not survive past storm season unless she claims the power of the portal for herself.

Isla kills would-be assassin Tynan and presents his severed head to the Nightshade court while draped in venomous snakes.

Grim proposes they remarry to quell suspicions that Isla is a spy; she agrees, secretly hoping it will protect Oro by driving him away.

Isla and Grim hold their second wedding ceremony in Isla's greenhouse, attended by many Nightshades and all willing Wildlings.

Sairsha and her companions reveal themselves as prophet-followers who drug and attack Isla, forcing her to kill them all.

Isla discovers her father's map of an uninhabited island named after her and travels there to safely reclaim her magical powers.

Lark Crown pulls Isla underground, introduces herself as Isla's ancestor and one of Lightlark's founders, and declares her plan to destroy Nightshade.

Isla, Grim, and Oro lure Lark into a trap and wound her with Remlar's cursed dagger, but Lark captures Isla.

Isla realizes she has absorbed the blacksmith's power, uses it to destroy her shademade bracelets, and breaks free from Lark's prison.

Isla opens the portal to the otherworld called Skyshade and transports herself and Lark through it, disappearing before Grim and Oro can stop her.

Skyshade opens with Isla having sacrificed herself to save Grim in battle, only to be resurrected with her fate permanently bound to his. Determined to stop Grim from destroying Lightlark through the portal, she seeks answers on a treacherous mountain and learns that a hidden portal is the key to halting Nightshade's deadly storms. She kills an assassin to assert her authority at court, agrees to remarry Grim as both cover and genuine feeling, and is devastated when her only friend Sairsha turns out to be a prophet-follower who attacks her. After reclaiming her powers and discovering her father's secret map, Isla faces her true enemy when her ancient ancestor Lark Crown surfaces with plans to destroy and remake the world. In the climax, Isla unites her two warring love interests, fights her way free from Lark's prison, and sacrifices herself by dragging Lark through the portal into the otherworld.

The headline events driving Isla's desperate quest to save two worlds.

Isla secretly teleports most of Nightshade's healing elixir to Lightlark to save soldiers wounded in the recent war.

The blacksmith agrees to forge the shademade bracelets only if Isla promises to one day break his immortality curse and grant him rest.

Wraith carries Isla and Grim to a storm-ravaged village where an elderly woman grimly calls the tempests harbingers of the end.

Isla teleports aboard Cleo's ship to beg for oracle information, but the Moonling ruler refuses, revealing she wants the portal to reunite with her dead child.

Eta warns Isla that a traitorous Wildling intends to destroy her and that she must follow the snakes to find them.

Isla visits Azul, confides the prophecy to him, and receives a stormfinch that senses storms and two rings that can track their source.

Isla finds Aurora's white quill in her old room, pricks her finger on its sharp point, and is disappointed when nothing appears to happen.

Isla saves Sairsha from a strangler and gradually becomes the vigilante heartripper, celebrated by villagers for ridding the town of predators.

Oro arrives at Nightshade after flying for days; Isla hides him from Grim and then rides into the raging storm on Wraith.

Isla tells Oro she has enjoyed killing, returns his golden rose necklace, and teleports away to break his heart for his own protection.

A graveyard is desecrated during the wedding celebration; Isla wrongly accuses guardians Terra and Poppy and has them imprisoned.

Isla asks the blacksmith to remove her shademade bracelets, believing her locked powers cost her any chance of sparing Sairsha's life.

Aurora teaches Isla how to draw skyres using shademade metal; Isla carves one into her arm and hides it using her Nightshade powers.

Grim takes Isla to his happiest childhood village near the winter palace, where they buy licorice and trade stories from their pasts.

Grim confesses to Isla that both he and Oro already knew Lark Crown was alive and imprisoned beneath Nightshade.

While managing the political fallout of war, Isla quietly works to protect Lightlark by diverting stolen healing elixir to its wounded soldiers and seeking prophetic knowledge from oracles, augurs, and rulers like Azul and Cleo. She stumbles onto a sinister enchanted quill and gradually forges a new identity as the vigilante heartripper, earning the gratitude of villagers and an unlikely friendship with Sairsha. When Oro risks everything to reach her, Isla shatters his heart and commits herself fully to her role as Grim's wife, eventually removing the bracelets that had kept her powerless. She masters the dangerous art of skyres under Aurora's guidance, uncovers her father's hidden cartography, and takes Grim to his childhood village before the full weight of Lark Crown's betrayal forces all secrets into the open.

The secondary events shaping Isla's alliances, discoveries, and growing identity.

After resurrecting Isla, Grim vows he will choose her over the entire world every single time, no matter the cost.

Isla and Grim survive a flooding tunnel on the prophet's mountain by surrendering to the current and falling asleep in each other's arms.

Isla sees a carving of a woman wrapped entirely in snakes on the augur's wall; he tells her it shows her own future.

Isla discovers that a greeting in Aurora's handwriting has appeared on the parchment where she signed her name with the enchanted quill.

Zed bursts in and shoots Isla with an arrow as she teleports away from Oro's chambers after returning his necklace.

Isla tells Grim she is ready to truly be his wife again; he kneels in tears, and the couple relives their original wedding night.

Isla enters the labyrinth and discovers that Cronan's shademade coffin is completely empty, leading her to theorize his bones must have formed the portal.

Isla uses Oro's lie-detection power to confirm that Terra and Poppy are entirely innocent of desecrating the graves or blighting the nightbane.

Lark Crown introduces herself to Isla as her own ancestor and one of Lightlark's three original founders, declaring her intent to build a new world.

Isla and Oro find the prophet's missing page and take a god's bone relic from the preserved tomb of Horus Rey.

Isla stands between Grim and Oro and demands they set aside their hatred to work together as the only hope of defeating Lark.

Isla accidentally pierces Oro's chest with a stone blade from her own uncontrolled power, then uses the last healing elixir to save his life.

Terra and Poppy reveal to Isla that her first cry as an infant was so powerful it destroyed her parents' castle and killed them both.

Isla finds a letter her father wrote before her birth explaining that he and her mother knowingly chose to sacrifice themselves for her destiny.

Inside the labyrinth, Isla discovers she was communicating with Lark through Aurora's feather all along, and that her blood drop had freed her ancestor.

Skyshade's most pivotal revelations begin when Grim vows to choose Isla over the entire world, immediately establishing the impossible stakes at the story's heart. As Isla investigates the storms and the traitor, a chain of unsettling discoveries — a cryptic carving, a message from the seeming dead, and an impossibly empty coffin — slowly transform her understanding of the dangers surrounding her. Her acceptance of her unconditional love for Grim marks a crucial emotional turning point, while the confirmation of her guardians' innocence forces her to realise the true traitor is far closer to home. In the final act, she learns the devastating truth about her parents' deaths, receives her father's absolution through a letter written before her birth, and finally discovers that she was manipulated into freeing her ancient ancestor through Aurora's enchanted feather all along. Armed with this self-knowledge and the shadow magic of her fallen friend Sairsha, Isla confronts her destiny on her own terms by sealing herself into the portal with Lark.

The key revelations and emotional turning points that reshape Isla's understanding of herself and her fate.

Alex Aster

Novel

Fiction

Guide