“I’m wearing an Eras Tour hoodie as we speak,” best-selling author Alex Aster tells Teen Vogue on our phone call. She’s back in New York City after traveling all the way to Miami, Florida, to watch Taylor Swift live in concert. It’s an experience she describes as both magical and emotional, especially since the singer’s album reputation was a major source of inspiration for her best-selling fantasy series Lightlark.
Ahead of the release of Skyshade, the highly anticipated third installment of Aster’s vivid romantasy series, the Booktok star says being able to write this many books about her main character’s story has been amazing.
“When I posted that first video, and in the year and a half before Lightlark was even published, I was just grateful to have a young adult series at all,” she says. “To now have a third book out is truly beyond any of my wildest dreams, and I’m really excited. I think readers will be surprised to see how Isla’s story unfolds.”
Teasing the divisive love triangle between Grim and Oro, Isla’s two steamy love interests, Aster says that even if fans don’t switch teams, they’ll hopefully come to understand why the main character is in love with both of them. “There are definitely a few scenes in this book that I think Team Grim or Team Oro will really appreciate,” she laughs. “I’m excited to see the reader’s reactions.”
Despite playing tug-of-war with our hearts, Aster says the latest book can be described in three words: Reputation, betrayal, and passion. Below, Aster gives us an exclusive excerpt from her latest book, which is set to release on November 12, and teases that she has some *very* exciting news to be revealed soon. Fingers crossed it’s a cast reveal for the Lightlark film adaptation, but we’ll take another 10 books as well…
Spoilers for Skyshade ahead.
Skyshade: Snake (Pages 100-108)
She and all of Nightshade wouldn’t survive the storm season, unless she could find the portal. Unless she could extend her life long enough to change her fate.
Part of her felt rage. Her life had barely been her own. Since she was a child, she had trained for the Centennial. Then, she found herself the ruler of two realms. Now, she was practically a walking corpse, her life tied to another, on borrowed time.
Freedom was what she had craved since she was a little girl, but fate was the ultimate restraint. It was the glass in her room, caging her; it was the bracelets, keeping the worst of her at bay.
The stormfinch sat watching her from inside its cage. She watched it back, willing it to sing. Willing a storm to break, so she could find the portal. Its beak remained closed.
It always stood in the same place. No matter how many days she left the door open, the bird never tried to fly out.
“You’re smarter than I am,” she said. For years, all she had wanted was to leave her room in the Wildling realm. She dreamed of adventure, of freedom.
Look where that had gotten her.
She was lonelier than ever, out of necessity. It wasn’t like Grim hadn’t tried to seek her out. Along with her favorite flowers, her favorite foods had been brought by attendants. He knew them all, and she didn’t think too hard about that fact.
The plates were all empty now, and she craved a bit of comfort. Something warm and sweet that would make her forget, for just a few moments, that there were only a couple of months left of winter.
It was long past midnight. She left her room, stepping carefully over the built-up pile of flowers, intending to find the kitchens. The halls were empty.
She walked through them, taking the long way to avoid the room Grim had been staying in, since he had given her his quarters. Part of her wanted to go there, to seek comfort in him, but no . . . her heart was too confused already. What she longed for was a friend.
What she longed for was a home.
There was an emptiness in her that had always existed. A place where perhaps a mother or father or friend would have gone. Celeste had filled it for a time, but she hadn’t been real.
So much hadn’t been real.
She remembered the carving on the augur’s wall. Her, looking the part of the vengeful snake-queen the people here believed her to be. She could almost see the serpents now, slithering around her arms. Hissing. She could almost feel them, cold scales slipping against her skin, even though she had returned the serpent she often wore to Wren an hour ago. It felt almost familiar. Almost right.
She turned the corner and hit something solid. Before she knew it, she was pressed against a cold wall. Her hand reached toward her blade on instinct but was pinned by her side before her fingers could curl around the hilt.
Grim rippled into visibility before her. His grip on her wrist was loose. She could easily escape it, but she didn’t. She remained very still, even as his thumb gently brushed across her pulse. It was getting faster. He could feel it. He tilted his head, looking down at her with a preternatural focus.
She was grateful she had scrubbed the blood from her skin, from her hair, from her clothes; but under his unrelenting gaze, she wondered if he knew where she had been. If he knew that while it seemed she worked for his realm’s benefit, she was also making plans without him.
She lifted her chin. “Following me?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Always.”
He leaned down, and she didn’t move a muscle, even as his lips inched closer. Closer. She swore her traitorous pulse must be hammering beneath his thumb, because his mouth curled in wicked amusement. Part of her wanted him to bridge the gap between them. Part of her wanted any comfort he could offer her, especially now, especially with everything falling apart. Instead, his lips swept past hers, dragging across her cheek all the way to her ear to say, his voice like a finger down her spine, “You’ve been avoiding me.”
She swallowed. He traced the movement of her throat with his gaze. “I’ve been trying to get information. About . . . about the portal.” It wasn’t completely a lie. She kept her emotions steady.
His lips were still inches from her ear. He leaned in, as if he could smell her feelings, as if he could taste them. Lower. His mouth pressed ever so gently against her pulse. She didn’t think she was breathing.
Then, he abruptly pulled back. Stared down at her, with eyes filled with something like fury. Something like worry.
“What happened?”
Of course he could sense her sadness.
She said nothing. She wondered what he would read into that—if it would make him suspicious of her comings and goings—but, if anything, he only looked more concerned.
He couldn’t have known she had been looking for the kitchens, but that was where he brought her, before she could blink.
Without saying a word, he began preparing something, moving around the room in a familiar, practiced way.
The words stumbled out of her. “You cook?”
He pretended to look offended by her surprise. “Is that really so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” she said, leaning against a counter. The dark stone was cold against her spine.
His gaze slipped down her body for just a moment, and she became aware that she had left her room in one of the nighttime outfits from her wardrobe, two small pieces of silk that left swaths of skin uncovered. His eyes darkened.
Then, he turned back to what he was doing. She watched as his hands worked quickly. Diligently. He was chopping something up and putting it in a pot. She couldn’t see exactly what it was. What she could see were his broad shoulders. His muscled back.
He faced her again, and she quickly shifted her gaze. “I learned during training. I often found myself alone. If I wanted to eat . . . I needed to cook.”
She knew little about his upbringing, other than a few mentions of it in the past. She knew he had undergone extreme training to be a warrior. It was difficult to imagine him without the comforts of his castle.
Now, though, as she watched him stir something in a pot, she could picture it. Grim, hair curled around his ears the way it was now, messy from a clear lack of sleep. His wide shoulders draped not in a ruler’s cape but in a black fabric that didn’t look soft at all, not soft enough to sleep in. She wondered if he had any comfortable clothes. All she remembered was him in his training clothes, or armor, or formal attire, or out of it.
The thought made her cheeks burn. She heard a scrape of movement—Grim, finding a mug. Pouring something into it.
That was when she smelled it.
She met his eyes. She must have looked far too excited, because he smiled again, like he treasured her excitement, like he would do anything to make her make that exact expression again.
He carried it over to her; and in her happiness, in her anticipation, she slipped her fingers over his around the mug. Together, they held it. Together, they brought it to her lips.
She groaned, tasting the chocolate. It was velvety, rich. Hot compared to the cold of the stone still against her back. Her eyes fell closed, savoring it.
When she opened them again, she found him studying her. He looked transfixed. Before she could make another move, he gently took the mug from her hands, set it on the counter
beside her hip, and brought a thumb to her lips, which she imagined were covered in chocolate. He brushed against them, and she shivered.
She didn’t know what came over her—perhaps the reminder that her life was fleeting—but when he moved to drop his hand, her own came down over it.
Grim went still. His eyes bore into hers, waiting. Waiting for her to tear away from him the way she had so many times before. She didn’t; and slowly, so slowly, his calloused fingers curled around her jaw. Threaded through her hair. Her fingers molded over his.
They just stared at each other, until his gaze dropped to her lips. The corner of his mouth lifted. “Missed some chocolate.” His voice sounded strained.
Her own was breathless. “Then get it.”
He made to move his thumb again, but she kept her hand firmly over his. He frowned. Then, his eyes seemed to go wholly black as he understood her meaning.
With a gentleness that had her heart racing, he slowly, so slowly, dipped his head.
He was the ruler of darkness. He was a brutal warrior who had killed a member of his court in cold blood simply for speaking ill of her. Now, he was almost trembling as his lips hovered inches from hers.
Slowly, reverently, his tongue traced her mouth, licking away the chocolate, and she was burning, she was aching. She wasn’t sure she was breathing when he took her entire bottom lip into his mouth—and slowly dragged it through his teeth, tasting her completely.
That was it. In this moment, she didn’t care what had happened or about the prophecy; she wanted him. She wanted him so badly, her skin felt raw, needy, ready. Her lips were swollen as he stared down at her, his chest heaving just as much as hers.
She wanted him to lift her onto the counter behind them by the backs of her thighs. Wanted him to settle between her legs, drag his tongue over the rest of her heated skin, taste her everywhere.
He could feel that want. Feel that aching need. She could feel his own, against her stomach. It nearly made her ask for everything she wanted.
Instead, she said, “Thank you for the chocolate.”
And went back to bed alone.
~
The scrape of a boot against the floor awoke her. Before she could move a muscle, every single one in her body tensed as if turned to stone.
A hand was curled around her wrist.
A gravelly voice said, “The whispers are true. You don’t sleep with the ruler.”
Tynan. She fought against his iron grasp on her bones, but she couldn’t even summon a groan in response.
“No, no . . . you can’t move at all, can you?” She heard him tap his foot. Her eyes were wide and glued to the ceiling. Tears streamed down her face after just seconds of not being able to close them. “The ruler seems to believe you are special in some way.” He spat at her. “But you are just a distraction. An enemy.”
She knew the sound of a sword scraping its scabbard. He forced her head back with his power, controlling her every muscle, stretching the skin of her neck taut. Her body trembled with the strain of trying to overpower him.
“The ruler has gone weak. You, Snake, have made him so. With you gone, we’re going to invade Lightlark. We’re going to finish what we started.” He leaned down until his putrid breath was right against her mouth. “You don’t even know how priceless this necklace is, do you? Only in death is it released . . . so I’ll just have to kill you.”
No. He didn’t know her and Grim’s lives were tied together. He didn’t know killing her would secure his own demise.
Tynan gripped her wrist so tightly it was a wonder the bone didn’t break. She would have cried out if she could.
The sword came into her view as he lifted it high over his head. She watched the flickering of her hearth’s flames reflect upon it.
A low growl sounded in front of her.
Tynan might have been right about Grim not sleeping in her chambers . . . but whoever had told him that information clearly didn’t know about the leopard that did. The one who was barely visible when he slept in the corner of her room, sinking into the shadows.
A roar, and then her wrist was released. Her limbs were freed of the invisible vise.
She doubled over and gasped for air. Sweat streamed down her back and the middle of her chest.
Tynan was thrashing on the floor, holding a hand against the gash Lynx had made in his neck.
Lynx’s teeth gleamed with his blood as he awaited her instruction.
Grim landed in the room with a crack. His wide eyes went straight to her, quickly assessing her state, then to the bleeding man on the floor.
His hands were shaking. His voice was not the predatory calm she had come to expect.
No, his words were laced in pure fury as he bent down, grabbed Tynan by his bloody neck, and said, “My wife? You dare threaten my wife?”
Tynan made what must have been a gurgled plea that didn’t translate into words.
Grim bared his teeth at him, his mouth turning into a twisted smile. “You have no idea how much I’m going to enjoy killing you.”
Shadows spilled across the floor, poisonous and ruinous, nothing in the world could stop them—except for the hand Isla placed on Grim’s shoulder.
At her touch, he stilled immediately. He looked up at her.
“Let me,” she said, in a voice she didn’t completely recognize. His shadows instantly retreated. Tynan’s eyes wildly searched the room, as if looking for a final chance at escape. But there would be no escape. He was injured, unable to wield his ability. She wasn’t frozen in her bedsheets any longer.
She took the dagger at her thigh and plunged it through his heart. Blood spurted through his ribs, down her hand, but she only twisted the blade deeper. Deeper, until the tip dug into the floor.
Something within her seemed to sing.
As she watched the life leech from his eyes, Isla realized with horror and fascination that taking it felt good.
~
Tynan wouldn’t have been the only one in the Nightshade court who wanted her gone. She needed to send a message.
Grim’s people didn’t need another reason to hate her. But she would gladly give it to them.
Air was stolen in sharp gasps throughout the room as Isla strutted through it. They had all gathered before Grim, who watched her from his throne. His posture might have been casual, but there was nothing mild about the lingering fury in his expression.
Snake queen? She would be the villain they already believed her to be.
Her black dress had thin straps and a plunging neckline. The fabric clung to her skin like a sheet of water, its loosely curled ribbons streaming gently onto the floor. Thin, poisonous snakes curled around her waist, sliding up and across her chest, keeping her decent, slithering. Two more wrapped around each of her arms. They hissed at the closest nobles as she passed them by, making one stumble onto the floor. The thinnest snake of all curled around her neck like another necklace.
Their looks of horror weren’t about the snakes, however—though each was poisonous. No; they stared at what she gripped loosely in her hand, emitting a line of dripping blood next to her.
Tynan’s head, held by the hair.
She reached Grim’s throne and threw it at his feet.
“Eat,” she said, and the snakes slithered down her body and raced to the floor, sending the closest people screaming. Their poison worked instantly, melting flesh from bone. The creatures devoured his eyes and tongue in front of the crowd. They swallowed the remaining flesh, and his eyes, all in front of the crowd. Wren had trained them well.
Someone loudly vomited. Another fainted.
Grim forced them to watch. Isla stayed until Tynan’s head was no more than a skull.
“Well,” she said, her voice echoing in the silence. “If anyone else wants me dead, you know where to find me.” Then, she turned on her heel and left the throne room her snakes not far behind.
