Skyshade

Grim spends his time preparing his realm for the approaching storms and searching for Nightshade’s portal. Meanwhile, Isla disguises herself and searches the city’s underbelly for someone that she feels deserves death. She finds a man strangling a woman and carves out his heart as a gift for the augur, but he asks for more. She brings him the hearts of several more wicked people and demands that he show himself. The augur is a skeletal figure with crimson eyes and pale skin covered in ancient runes called skyres. He tells Isla that she “won’t last past the storm season” in her current state and that she needs to find the portal to save herself (110). The prophet’s book detailed how to close the portal, but that page was stolen and taken to Lightlark. Isla sees a carving of a fearsome woman wrapped with snakes on the augur’s wall, and he says that it shows her future.

Isla returns to Grim’s castle. She hopes that a storm will arrive soon so that she can use Azul’s ring to trace it back to the portal. This way, she might be able to keep herself and all of Nightshade alive long enough to find a way out of the prophecy. That night, Isla is feeling anxious and alone when she bumps into Grim in the castle’s halls. He makes her a cup of hot chocolate, and she asks him to kiss her. The kiss makes them both feel “raw, needy, ready” (118), but Isla returns to her room alone rather than succumbing to her desire.

Hours later, Tynan sneaks into Isla’s room with the intention of killing her so that Nightshade can resume its war against Lightlark, not realizing that the realm’s life is bound to hers. Lynx attacks Tynan, and Grim appears to finish the soldier off, but Isla kills him instead. Grim summons the Nightshade court to his throne room. Isla strides in wearing a black gown, wrapped in venomous snakes, and carrying Tynan’s head. She feeds the head to the snakes and declares, “If anyone else wants me dead, you know where to find me” (123).

Astria tells Isla that she still doesn’t trust her or approve of her father forsaking his duty to marry a Wildling, but they form a tentative bond based on the fact that they have no other living relatives. Isla returns to her room in the Wildling newland and sees that, on the parchment where she wrote her name with the white quill, there is now a greeting in Aurora’s handwriting.

Isla brings the quill to the blacksmith, who reveals that both he and the enchanted object are from the otherworld, making them millennia old. The quill contains a piece of shademade and a fragment of a soul. Isla places the quill in the pocket where she keeps the necklace from Oro. Through her bond with Lynx, she sees the leopard’s memories, including her first kiss with Oro. Grim asks Isla to marry him again so that they can assure Nightshade of her loyalty. She agrees, partly because she feels that she doesn’t deserve Oro and hopes that this will help him move on.

Isla spends her nights hunting down people who harm others so that she can give their hearts to the augur. She experiences “a twisted sort of satisfaction” when she kills (140), as though taking lives feeds some secret, growing part of her. Sairsha, the woman she saved from strangulation, asks Isla to teach her how to defend herself. Isla gives her some advice and a dagger but asks to be left alone. However, Sairsha continues to visit one of Isla’s favorite perches until Isla eventually agrees to go to a local bar with her. The awed patrons call her the heartripper and thank her for protecting their town. Isla begins visiting the bar with Sairsha and the other regulars each night after she finishes patrolling the streets. One night, Oro appears outside Isla’s window.

Isla’s shademade bracelets weaken the bond between her and Oro. Sensing this, he grows worried and flies to Nightshade, a journey that takes days. He doesn’t trust anyone else with this mission, because Isla’s former allies think she’s a traitor. The moment Isla touches Oro’s face, the stormfinch begins to sing. She urges Oro to hide and then hurries to Grim’s room before the Nightshade ruler discovers his enemy.

Isla and Grim ride Wraith high into the sky, awaiting the storm. Grim knows that Isla has been to the augur and entreats her to let him use Lightlark’s portal to save her, but he respects that Isla doesn’t want “to doom thousands to death, just to save herself” (154). Shards of shademade shower down like hail, battering and slicing Isla. Still, she goes further into the storm and catches a piece of the tempest in Azul’s ring. Grim shields her from the metallic hail with his body and orders Wraith to descend. Isla accidentally drops the ring and then tries to hurl herself after it, but Grim stops her. Suddenly, a creature that breathes lightning attacks Wraith, sending the dragon and his riders hurtling to the ground.

Wraith catches Grim and Isla, and Grim portals them to safety. The dragon is badly injured, and Isla urges Grim to gather healing elixir from the Wildlings. She returns to her room, where Oro entreats her to come back to Lightlark with him. Isla explains that her life is bound to Grim’s, but Oro remains determined to find a solution to their predicament: “We could imprison [Grim]. No one would have to die” (165). She decides that she has to make Oro hate her so that he’ll stop prioritizing her ahead of his own safety and his duties as king. She tells him that she’s killed many people and enjoyed it: “There is so much blood on my hands, they’ll never be clean. I’m the enemy, Oro” (166). She teleports them both to Oro’s room. Although she longs to remain with him, she forces herself to return the necklace he gave her and break his heart. Zed bursts into the room and shoots Isla with an arrow. Oro stitches the wound, and she tells him that she’s marrying Grim again before teleporting back to Nightshade. At Isla’s request, Grim sends the last vial of healing elixir to Wraith and redoes Isla’s split stitches himself.

Many of Nightshade’s citizens die in the storm, and others succumb to their wounds because there is no more healing elixir. During the next few days, Grim avoids Isla, and she worries that he knows she saw Oro and thinks her a traitor. She returns to Sairsha’s village to distract herself, and there she learns that the people are eagerly awaiting the royal wedding. One night, as Isla corners a murderer, Grim appears and helps her kill the man. Grim reveals that he’s known that she’s the heartripper for some time. He tells her, “Kill anyone you want, heart, especially these bastards. Kill me, if it will make you feel better” (173). Grim aims Isla’s dagger at his chest, and they share a passionate kiss before he teleports away with a promise to see her at the altar tomorrow.