Lightlark 1
Alex Aster
Wilding - Isla - lovers die, eat hearts - nature
Sunling - Oro - banned from sunlight - fire
Moonling - Cleo - full moon drowns too close to sea - water/healing
Starling - Celeste - live to 25 - move objects
Nightshade - Grim - cannot go into night - darkness/curses/mind control
Skylings - Azul - bound to the ground - wind
1. Isla, a wildling, travels the six realms using her star stick. When she returns, Poppy scolds her for her braids coming undone. Tara had made Isla earn each of her swords. The two women are her only family, all of her blood relatives are dead. The island, Lightlark, appears every 100 years for the centennial games that will be deadly for Isla. Many people used to live on the island, but they left to forge their own realms. Poppy and Tara have been preparing her to carry out their plan for a long time and she plans to execute it exactly. Each realm has their own curse. Wildlings will always kill those they love and live on human hearts. The Centennial is the only way to break their curses. She tries to reassure her people with a vow to succeed though the past four centennials resulted in failures of her predecessors. She walks through the portal.
2. A Nightshade (makes curses) named Grim greets her on the other side and tells her to open her eyes. This is the first year the Nightshades were invited to the centennial. Grim moves Isla to the side and Azul arrives through the portal. Azul admires the large diamond Isla has. They are very common in her realm. She takes off the ring and puts it on his finger. Cleo (Moonling, oldest) arrives and isn’t impressed with Isla. Isla is polite to try to be unlike the wildlings’ reputation. The Starling ruler, Celeste, comes last (only lives to 25 years). They are each given an attendant and sent to their rooms. Isla’s Starling girl leads her down into the castle, which is tied to the ruler of the Sunlings. If he does, all of the realms would fade. Isla gets to her room and the girl stokes the fire telling Isla she is ordered to keep the fires going at all times. Celeste comes and they greet each other like excited teenage girls. Isla found the star stick among her mother’s things and traveled the realms. She met Celeste and they decided their own plan to end their curses because they both know if they don’t, their people might not have a chance next centennial.
3. In just her slip, Isla goes out onto her balcony and sings. When she is done, she is startled by someone clapping. She turns and falls over the ledge. She hits the water below. When Isla wakes up in her own bed, she is surprised that someone had saved her. Poppy planned for Isla to be carefully quaffed for the first meeting, but she doesn’t have time and quickly gets ready to meet with the others. The others look at her in surprise. The king that saved her curtly nods at her in expected greeting. Isla sits at the table wet and freezing and dreams of disappearing. When the meal is served, Isla says she will have hers sent to her room because most people don’t like to see her eat heart. The king insists she eat there and no one will be offended. She takes a bite and has the rest sent to her room. Grim looks disgusted by the ordeal. Isla is able to keep her stomach under control until she gets back to her room and vomits the blood.
4. Isla doesn’t have any powers because her mother didn’t kill her father. Her father killed her mother right after she was born. To break the curses, one of the rulers must die without an heir which will also kill their entire realm. Oro goes over the rules. No one is allowed to kill anyone during the first 50 days of the event. The first 25 days will be spent evaluating each ruler. They will be paired up and there will be a ball on the 50th night. None of them are allowed to have an heir to participate to ensure a death will result in the elimination of an entire realm.
5. Each ruler is only allowed to bring one trunk of belongings (but no weapons) with them and are then given a personalized wardrobe. Isla starts heading out to go to her appointment when her attendant, Ella, comes to check if she needs anything. Isla noticed that she walks with a limp. Ella said it had been broken and didn’t heal properly. Now she is so close to 25 that it isn’t worth fixing. Isla gives her a salve to help heal it and says she needs something from her. She heads out on her own, but runs into Grim. He asks her if she can eat chocolate and when she confirms takes her into a shop. Isla is used to be hated because of what she is, but the people hate Grim more and focus their hate on him instead of her. He orders chocolate and she tries all that he offers her, including a spicy one she has to spit out. She goes to the Taylor next and is fitted for wardrobe made of spider silk. She tells him in addition to dresses, he will need attire fit for fighting including pants and armor. Grim watches the entire ordeal. He tells her his demonstration is first and warns her she will also need a sword.
6. Isla gives Celeste one of the two swords she procured because of Grim’a warning. Celeste warns her not to trust him. Poppy and Tara’s plan started with Isla making the king fall in love with her, but she isn’t okay with it. Her and Celeste’s plan is to find the bond breaker, a glass needle that can break the curses for a person’s entire line. The payment required is enough blood to possibly kill even a ruler. Isla and Celeste plan to share the cost of using it in hopes they both survive. It is rumored to be kept in one of the libraries. Celeste will search the Starling library first, but if it isn’t there, Isla will have to sneak into the other libraries to find it. She goes back to the back door of the tailor’s shop and uses lLC pins to open the locked back door. She steals an armful of silk to help her disguise for searching the other libraries. She notices there isn’t any gold we in the shop and wonders if the Sunlings use a different tailor.
7. An invitation comes one hour before the first demonstration for duels. Oro and Azul face off first and Oro wins very fast. Celeste puts up a fight against Cleo, but looses. Isla and Grim face off and she gets into the dance of the duel. She beats him before she remembers her and Celeste’s plan requires them both to get through the demonstrations unnoticed so they will be paired together. Oro claps for her and the rest of the crowd joins in. The next round is Oro against Cleo. When he wins, Isla faces off against the king. She is about to win, but remembers the plan and lets Oro win. He looks at her like he suspects that she threw the fight, but the crowd goes wild.
8. Isla apologizes to Celeste for not being mediocre like they had planned. They have been working on their own plan for years during secret meetings and sleepovers. Celeste says she needs to listen so they can be paired together and won’t have to sneak around. Isla promises to focus on not standing out as much. Celeste says she is working on acquiring magic gloves that allow the wearer to have powers. They come at a terrible price and are said to be made of human flesh. This is how the intend to make sure the others don’t realize Isla doesn’t have any powers. There are rumors that Moonling is acting odd with guards keeping track of who comes to their island. This could be an issue for Isla when she goes to search the island for the bond breaker. She also tells Celeste she wasn’t able to get the gold silk because the tailor didn’t have any.
9. The next demonstration is Azul’s and comes without notice. Each ruler is to show off their power. Grim goes first and creates 100 copies of himself in the room and has them all squashed to death before the room goes back to being as it was. Cleo uses a wine in the noble’s goblets to create a shark in the air and it comes crashing down in frozen spikes around her. Celeste sets the room into sparks. Azul shows off his wind power. Isla tries to appear confident as she blindfolds herself and uses a throwing star from her hair to knock off the king’s crown. She walks over to him and picks it up saying he dropped it. Lastly, Oro turns his glass into gold, a power that was said to be lost to the Sunlings for a long time. The nobles judge and vote Oro the winner of this challenge.
10. Isla spends a couple of days watching people around the main city. She notices a bar where people go in, but come out without anything in their hands or being drunk. She goes in to find the bartender deals in secrets. She tells him she could have beat the king in the dueling demonstration and he agrees it’s worth information. She asks how to get onto Moonling. He tells her there aren’t any guards during the full moon and the next one is in the 20th day of the Centennial. As she is getting ready to leave, he asks if she knows anything about the tailor’s missing clothes. She tells him that is a secret for another time and leaves.
11. Celeste’s demonstration is next. She brought a mirror with her that reveals the users biggest fear. Each person can only use it once, so she has not had any practice with it. Too goes first and conquers his fear in three minutes. Azul in five minutes. Cleo in just under three minutes. Celeste in five minutes. When it is Isla’s turn, she puts her hand to the mirror and is pulled into it.
12. Isla is trapped in a room of glass and realizes it is the mirror. She starts to worry that she will be stuck in there forever, but quickly decides she is not going to let it happen to her after she has finally found some freedom. She breaks through the walls and they topple down on top of her. She finds herself back on the right side of the mirror. Cleo won the demonstration. Isla and Celeste meet back by the mirror later. Celeste has the glove the need and is able to capture some of the essence of each ruler left behind on the mirror by their hand print. This is what they will use to access the rare objects kept in each island’s library.
13. Isla and Celeste mix the elixir that will change her hair into a color that will allow her to blend in among the Skylings. She is nervous the bridge to Sky Isle could throw her off if it was closed to other realms. She crosses without incident and is able to find the library. She goes to the back and is able to find the way to open the wall to reveal stairs. She goes down, but Cloe is there. Isla thinks she is far enough away for her not to have recognize her and starts to move quickly away from her. Cleo follows and Isla does her best to lose her. She ends up running into Grim and she begs him not to let her be found. He complies and Cleo is confused at not finding anyone. When she is gone, Grim asks if she is looking to change realms an d invites her to the Nightshades. She declines and thanks him before taking off scolding herself for her attraction to him.
14. Isla gets the invitation for her demonstration next. While walking outside the castle, she runs into Azul and he starts to show her around. Sh asks him about this being his fifth Centennial competition and he tells her how the previous ones went for him. He doesn’t think he has it in him to do a sixth. He tells her that his realm is run by a democracy since he took over and if the people didn’t want him as their ruler he would step down. Hw shows her the tunnels in the mountains and tells her when he was young, he and his friends would race through them. He uses his power to blow wind through the tunnels creating music and Isla hums along. She has been watching each ruler’s servant to find out where their rooms are. She goes to Grim’s room and tells him her challenge is to show the usefulness of their realm to the kingdom’s future. She considers them even now.
15. When it is time for Isla’s demonstration, she has Azul start. He shows that their wind powers can improve communications and shows off a deliver of a letter to her. She smiles at the notes mention of music. Cleo gets up, says her people have lots of ships, and leaves it at that. Celeste has a few other Starlings join her to help her create a sword using their powers. Oro reaches into a fire and pulls out a separate fire. He tells them the child fire won’t go out until the parent does. Grim tells them his realm doesn’t have anything productive to offer and leaves. Isla asks Oro to create a fire and he does so. She sticks her arm into it until she can’t bare it anymore. She shows off her ruined arm and then takes the elixir that immediately heals her arm.
16. The elixir Isla drank healed her arm, but didn’t take away the pain. She is trying to put on a dress over her hurt arm when Grim appears in her room. She asks why he didn’t participate in her demonstration when he had plenty of time to prepare. He tells her that Lightlark was formed by two people, Oro’s father and his own. Both got greedy and a war ensued ending with the Nightshades being banned. Grim was made to live on Lightlark as punishment. Isla asks if he is the one that cursed them and he asks if she would ever forgive him if he was. She says she doesn’t think so considering the destruction the curses have brought to her family and people. He tells her he did not make the curses, but he is not there to win the Centennial either. He points out she has a lot of questions for someone with so many secrets before he leaves.
17. Cleo’s challenge comes next and they are to find their deepest desires and get to them first. They will be judge on how quick they get to them rather than what their desires are. They are pulled from their rooms at midnight with no warning and brought to a pool with swim lanes divided by ice walls. She notices a rash on Oro’s hand and tells him the remedy for it. She questions how he got it considering the plant that he would have gotten it from only grows deep in the forest. He thanks her. The challenge starts and they jump in the water. Isla tries to ignore that she is freezing and keeps swimming. She senses home, Poppy, and Tara, but there is a stronger pull another way that she doesn’t know what it leads to. She realizes she wants freedom, but also love (which she has always considered foolish considering what happened to her parents). She follows that feeling, but by the time she gets to it, she is too cold to read what is written on the card. She has Ella take her to her room right away. She gets in the warm bath and is given tea to try to warm her up.
18. Celeste brings Isla soup to help her get better. She isnmt feeling well when the full moon comes around, but they know she is the only one that can get into and out of the castle on Moon Isle without getting caught.
19. Isla finds the information she got from Juniorr is correct and there aren’t any guards on the Moon Isle bridge during the full moon. She gets to the castle where most of the island is hiding from the sea. She scales the wall to get in through an open window. She starts sneaking around, but is seen by a guard. She hides in a room, but the guard tells another he saw someone going. When they open the door, Isla knocks them out. She drags them into the room and leaves them there. She makes her way to the library, but is spotted again. She is backed up against the back wall of the library when she notices the giant waves hitting the castle seem further away than they should be. She uses the glove to enter the secret door into the Moonling’s collection. She panics when all she sees are books. She falls on the ground and it clears up the icy floor below her. She can see all the artifacts floating in the water underneath and chained to the ground. She doesn’t see the bond breaker. The guards are almost to her when she uses her star stick to get herself out of there.
20. Isla sleeps for two days to heal. The king announces his own challenge. Isla joins the others for tea and drinks her happily. After they have all drank their different teas, Oro announces they drank a truth serum. Their cups reveal their deepest secrets. Celeste looks to Isla and says her cup has Isla’s secret. Cloe and Oro are the last two with their cups. When Cleo smashes hers, Oro announces that he is dying. He wins the challenge and leaves the room.
21. Isla and Celeste decide they need to move more quickly with their plan, but the only library left for them to search is the Sunling library. When it is time for the ceremony to announce their partners, Aro explains that it is his job to keep the island warm, but has not been able to keep it warm enough. Plants are dying off. He shows them where his golden skin is starting to turn gray. The prophecy is on the wall to remind them of it. They must be joined (teams), one must win, and one must do the same thing that started the curses. The king announces his partner choice is Isla.
22. That night, Oro comes to Isla’s room and tells her they need to work together. He offers her protection in return for helping him identify plants he needs. He tells her he thinks this will be the last Centennial. She agrees, but caveats that she wants to choose one other realm to save. He agrees to her terms and they leave to start looking at plants. He assumes she is cloaking her powers and tells her she will have to keep doing so. There are ancient creatures that would be upset with her because they feel that the Wilding rulers have abandoned them.
23. They make their way to the storm. When they come to a bridge that doesn’t look steady, she makes him cross with her. Next, he tells her they have to jump down a hole to where the plants are. She makes him go first and she wonders if this is his plan to kill her without actually having to do it herself. She jumps down and looks around her. There are plants and she points out the ones that are the most likely to hide something within them. He makes her promise not to tell Grim before he tells her they are looking for the heart of Lightlark rumored to bloom once every hundred years. They don’t have much time left before the sun comes up, so Oro picks her up and flies them back to the mainland. She tells him it was a horrible experience and he leaves her to walk the rest of the way back.
24. The next night, they go to the Skyling Isle to search more plants. She asks if the heart would be recognizable. He tells her the power it gives off is unmistakable, but can only be sensed close by. Isla starts looking in purse plants and ties a piece of fabric to each one she checks. They don’t find anything. Ella brings Isla clothes for her to wear while searching for the heart.
25. Isla has sexual dreams about Grim. Isla is walking around the castle when she overhears Azul telling Oro that one of the realms has to die. That night, she asks about Azul and Oro tells him he lost his husband because of the curses. She asks if the heart could be on Wild Isle, but he tells her everything on the island is dead. She is shocked by this news. He tells her that before the curses, the Wildlings had been his favorite realm after his own.
26. The next night, they are searching again. She asks about Cleo being willing to kill anyone to save her own realm. He tells her it isn’t killing the ruler that is difficult, but trying to decide which realm will be destroyed. All of them are important to Lightlark. She asks why they don’t kill Grim because he is not part of Lightlark. Oro tells her the Nightshades protect them from something far more dangerous but doesn’t tell her anything more. She ends up getting attacked by a plant and Oro has to save her from it. She pulls barbs out of her back while Oro pulls thorns from her arms. Oro and Isla agree their current strategy isn’t working and Oro says it is time he talks to one of the ancient creatures he told her about.
27. Isla and Celeste come up with a plan to make it look like they are becoming friends so no one is suspicious of them being seen together. They arrange a “chance encounter” at a weapon shop, but a Mooning walks by Isla and slips a note into her hand saying she is in great danger. She choses after the white cloaked figures to the docks, but is then attacked by Mountings that bind her with water. Celeste comes to her rescue and they end up killing her attackers. They leave a message in blood telling the assassin to “try harder.”
28. Isla goes back to the weapon shop where she was supposed to meet Celeste and gets a dagger. She is getting a feel for it when Grim appears. She asks him about the “greater danger” he is protecting them from, but he tells her he thinks it might distract her from their current task which is more pressing at the moment. She asks him to show her where the Wild Isle is. She memorizes the path there. Later, she goes back alone and makes her way tot he Wildling castle. She finds the room that is just like hers and finds a door in the closet just like the one in her own room where she found the star stick. She tries many different objects in the key hole but isn’t able to open it.
29. Isla goes back to the Juniper to ask if he knows about anything hidden in the Wildling castle. He says he doesn’t, but it is said that only Wildling powers will workin the Place of Mirrors. When she leaves, Grim is outside. He offers to make sure Juniper doesn’t give away any of her secrets, but she declines. They get caught in the rain and he leads her to a dark abbey. She asks what he was doing when the curses happened. He tells her she was in bed, but not sleeping. He takes her down to the beach and shows her how destructive his power can be. He tells her he doesn’t destroy it all because he thinks she would hate her. She asks why he would care what she thinks. He says he tried to stay away from her, but gave up on it. She scolds herself for risking her entire realm by having lusty feelings for him. She says they need to get back to the castle.
30. Oro comes to Isla with only seven days left until the rulers are allowed to start killing. He takes her to a ghost on Star Isle. The ghost tells her he has agreed to let her possess Isla (the most beautiful girl on the island) for a few minutes in exchange for her help finding Lightlark’s heart. Isla only agrees to this in exchange for access to the Sunling’s library. He agrees. When the whole ordeal is over, Oro points out she never specified when he would let her into the library. She tells him she will go on her own anyway as he stalks off.
31. Isla goes straight up to Sun Isle during the day when no one is out. She is surprised when the guards in the library welcome her in at the king’s command. She goes straight for the secret place where the relics are kept, but she doesn’t see anything that looks like a giant needle. She starts to think the bond breaker might have gone missing, been destroyed, or maybe never even existed.
32. Celeste thinks there must be another library they have missed. She isn’t worried about the deadline because the 50th day marks halfway through the Centennial. Isla doesn’t think she will survive long once Cleo is allows to kill her. She goes to Oro and thanks him for the access to the library. She admits she didn’t find what he was looking for. Neither did he. She asks him what they do next.
33. The 50th day is the Betwixt Ball. Oro drinks wine and watches the ordeal. Grim asks Isla to dance. When she presses herself against him, he makes the invisible and takes her to the next floor down. He gives her a necklace and tells her she can use it to call him if she needs him. He takes her back up to the party and tells her she should dance with the king. Before she has a chance, the ground starts to shake and the entire room starts to crumble. The rulers do what they can to help those around them. Islam makes her way to Oro who is in a lot of pain. She refuses to leave him. She yells at him to do something so they can still have their chance to break the curses. She realizes this is probably the last chance they will have to do it.
34. Oro takes Isla to find one of the ancient creatures that could tell them about the heart. Isla is bound and being used as bait. The one they are looking for slits the king’s throat and Isla cuts the rope and throws a dagger at the man’s neck. Oro stops it just before it kills him. The man is intrigued by Isla and asks that she visit him after the Centennial. Isla agrees to it and he tells them he has seen the heart, but not this Centennial. He tells them it usually ends up in a place where light and dark meet. Oro gets them out of there, but is too weak. They crash land and she tries to get him to water so he can heal himself. She lets him rest a bit, but when the sun starts to come up, she struggles to drags him into a nearby cave.
35. Isla stays in the corner of the cave watching over Oro. He wakes upon and is surprised to find she saved him. She tells him they are even. They agree to play a game where they each ask questions and can only answer honestly. She learns Grim was invited to the Centennial because the deed that caused the curses must be done again. Oro believes using the heart to harness Nightshade powers is how the curses came to be. He admits that the Sunling and Nightshade predecessors created Lightlark together. He talks about the places on the islands where the two meet. There are eight places total they need to search and they plan to leave Moon Isle for last. He tells her he is willing to give up his secrets now because he is dying. The grayness of his arm has spread. He asks Isla about her secret. When she refuses to answer, he offers to allow her to win the contest and take the power promised. She still refuses. When the sun goes down, they return to the castle.
36. Oro and Isla search as many of the light/dark spots they can, but end up having to fly to Moon Isle to check there. They go to the oracles that float in the water behind ice. Oro wakes them up and and they tell Isla there are lies all around her and that her secret will be revealed. She tells them the heart is on the island, but cannot tell them where. They don’t have time to search then, so they return to the castle and agree to continue the search the next day.
37. Isla uses her star stick to look at her home. She sees Poppy trying to take care of Tara while she is dying and becoming part of the land. She goes to Oro and asks if his offer still stands to give her the power of the heart if she tells him her secret. He agrees and tells her she can trust him. She tells him she wasn’t born with any powers and therefore has never wielded them. She leaves him there.
38. The next morning, they rulers all meet to discuss their findings. Oro tells everyone that he and Isla have been looking for a relic he thinks will help them break the curses. When asked if they should all look for it, Oro tells them their best chance is to use as many strategies as possible in hopes one works. Oro announces that he wants to change partners and his new one will be Cleo because he believes the relic they seek is on Moon Isle. He then tells them all that Isla doesn’t have any powers. Grim takes her hand and immediately uses his flair to transport them out of there.
39. Grim admits he knew she didn’t have the curse because of his own Nightshade powers. He saved her from having to eat the heart in front of everyone because he knew she didn’t have to. She asks why he is helping her and he tells her it is because everyone sees them as monsters. He reminds her of the necklace he gave her in case she needs him.
40. Grim helps Isla move into the Place of Mirrors so if anyone comes after her, they won’t be able to use their powers. She gives Ella a bag of gems to get her the help she needs for her leg. Ella puts her own life in danger to continue to serve her. Celeste calls her a fool for trusting the king, but they cry together over their situation. She has continued the search for the bond breaker and thinks she is getting close. Isla wonders if it would be best if she and her realm where the ones to die, but Celeste reassures her they need Wildlings.
41. Celeste comes to the Place of Mirrors to talk Isla into not giving up. Isla doesn’t think the bond breaker is the solution, but she does get an idea. She writes to Juniper and tells him she is willing to give him the details of her secret in exchange for info. Grim comes to see her and she accuses him of sending her the sexual dreams she has been having of him. He denies it, but seems to enjoy it. When Isla gets a reply from Juniper it says he knows who put the curses on them. She and Celeste go to his bar and find him dead with a message reply to the “try harder” one she and Celeste left. It asks if this is hard enough.
42. Isla thinks about her mother and she wishes she could have known her. She doesn’t blame her from it being able to kill the one she loved. Isla is about to go back through the forest when she sees Cleo. She starts to follow her. Isla thinks about how the curses have weakened every ruler’s power except Cleo’s. She believes Cleo is the one that cursed them. Cleo killed Juniper to keep him from telling anyone. She follows Cleo into the forest. When they are into the forest, a bird swoops down to alert Cleo that she is being followed. Cleo turns and freezes Isla. Isla tells her what she knows, but Cleo says she doesn’t know what she thinks she does. She doesn’t plan for a Isla to live to tell anyone. Isla reaches for the necklace Grim gave her, but he cannot go into the night to help her.
43. Isla can hear men trying to break her out of the ice and talking about eating her heart. She feels heat and Oronis there to rescue her. He tells her he had to make Cleo believe he was betraying Isla to get access to a place on her island. He tells her Cleo thinks the Celeste is the one that has to die, but Oro thinks the Starlings are too important to lose. He promises their plans will continue as they discussed. She doesn’t think she can trust him. He tells her his flair is knowing when people are lying to him and that is all she has done. She warns him that if he betrays her again, she will eat his heart.
44. Isla goes to the 24 hour Carnival event as the rules state she must. While there, she decides to try some of the wine for the first time and gets dizzy. She starts unraveling her dress as she makes her way back to her room but gets lost. Oro finds her in the hallway and gets her back to her room. She invites him in and makes tea. They talk for a little while and she falls asleep with her head in his lap. Isla wakes up while it’s still night and warns Oro he should attend the end of Carnival. He agrees and is upset with himself for coming into her room. He tells her they have two more places to search in Moon Isle starting the next night. She goes out to the balcony, but it isn’t long before Ella comes to tell her Celeste was attacked.
45. When Isla gets to Celeste, Oro is already there. He says she has to heal her body on her own. If the person that did it would have been able to complete the poisoning, Celeste would have died instantly. Islamic convinced Cleobisnthe one behind it, but Oro isn’t sure. When he leaves the room, Isla calls Grim to hide Celeste until she recovers.
46. Isla goes back to the Place of Mirrors to try to open the door in the closet hoping there might be something inside to help Celeste, but doesn’t make any progress. Oro takes her to their next location. They strip down and go into a lake to check the roots of the plants for the heart. While down there, the creatures try to keep Isla from accomplishing her mission by making her forget her purpose. Oro finds her and tells her the night creatures can mess with a person’s mind. He heals her and tells her the heart isn’t there. tell he the next location they are going to look involves the men that attacked her when she was frozen. He tells her they were once Wildlings, but the left the realm so long ago that they do not share in its curses.
47. Isla arms herself well before they take off the next night. When the Cleo’s spy bird comes along, Isla threatens to shoot it and make it into a stew. When the former Wildlings appear, Isla doesn’t hesitate to kill them. They make it to the place Oro thought it could be, but the heart isn’t there. She wonders if Cleo already has the heart.
48. A few days later, Isla bangs on Oro’s door. She asks him how he found out about the heart. He tells her he read about it in a book from a hidden library. She has him show her and asks him to read the part about the heart out loud. He tells her that Horus Rey (Sunling) and Cronan Malvere (NIghtshade) where not the only ones that create Lightlark. Her ancestor, Lark Crown, also helped. Only one of them (Sunning, Nightshade, or Wildling) could have created the curses because they are the only ones that can find the heart. They start going through the books to try to find the answers they need. When they decide to take a break, Isla goes to see Celeste. She notices her hand is in a fist. She opens it up to find the diamond ring she gave Azul upon their arrival.
49. Isla calls for Grim using the necklace and he runs to her. She asks why he didn’t tell her about Wildling being apart of the island’s creation. He tells her he thinks somethings are best discovered on their own. She asks if he has any other secrets. He tells her he can’t stop thinking about her. They start making out and undressing. She notices the scar across his chest and he says it was from someone trying to kill him. He gets her off using his hand.
50. Isla spends her time in the library trying to concentrate on finding the secret about the heart and curses. She lets her mind wander to thoughts about her and Grim. When Oro mentions dark meeting light, she realizes it could mean that the heart only appears at dusk or dawn. She thinks about the bird that he said lead him to her to save her. She realizes the bird wasn’t a spy for Cleo, but had been trying to tell her something. She knows where the heart is.
51. The next night, they meet again. They plan to go to the Moon Isle and find shelter for Oro before Isla looks for the heart. They exchange crowns before they take off. On their way to the island, she tells him about finding the ring in Celeste’s hand. Oro finds it hard to believe Azul would hurt another ruler. When the bird appears, they follow it to a tree. They find a cave for Oro to hide from the sun in and wait for sunrise. They are getting along when the island starts to shake and Oro falls over. She asks if there is anything she can do for him and he asks her to sing. She does until the sun starts to rise. The look at the tree and see an egg float to the ground. She realizes that is the heart. He straightens the crown on her and tells her to go get it. She grabs it and feels the power, but an arrow pierces her heart. The Vinderlands have come for their revenge. Oro kills them all with fire instantly. She pulls on necklace and Grim comes for her. Oro begs something of him. Isla sees his face before it disappears.
52. She wakes up in her room with Grim’s arm full of Wildling elixirs. He tells her while she was asleep he went to an ancient, abandoned store and found an old Wildling elixir. He used it to cure Celeste. Grim tries to stop her and tells her to rest, but she runs down the hall to see her. She promises to make everything right before she goes back to her own room. Grim and gone and Oro arrives in the setting sun. He tells her to get cleaned up and meet him in the library. She keeps the heart close to her and then joins Oro in the library. He tells her the last thing they need is to decide which realm will perish. He tells her now that they have the heart, it makes the most sense to kill the Nightshades. She thinks it is Cleo that should go, but he says he can’t damn an entire realm because of their ruler. Azul had offered to be the one to die and his democracy had agreed to it. She realizes she has to choose to either save Grim or Celeste. She begs him to spare Grim, but he says he can’t. He says he isn’t making the decision alone and she attacks him. He tells her to do it, but she knows she can’t kill him.
53. Isla goes to Celeste and tells her she wants to go back to their original plan and include Grim in it. She says she thinks she knows where the bond breaker is. Celeste agrees to create the distraction and sneaks into the secret library and search for it. When Isla feels the castle shake, she knows Celeste is going on with their plan. She calls Grim to her with the necklace. She tells him Oro plans to kill him, but Celeste and her have been working on another plan to save them. She tells them they will have to run, but he tells her he will give her anything she needs. They go to Wild Isle in the night hoping the island would nullify his curse. It works and she hopes Celeste is already there to meet them. He tells her the dreams she was having are actually memories. He met her a year ago when she went to the Nightshade realm with her star stick. He erased all her memories of her. She doesn’t know what to do, so she takes off into the forest. She makes it to the Place of Mirrors and the trees start to close around the castle. Celeste is already there with the bond breaker. Grim makes it through the trees and calls out to her. Celeste stabs her own palm and then Isla’s. The bond breaker takes something from Isla and to Celeste. Six drops of Celeste’s blood emulates each of the powers. Oro is there. Celeste uses Wildling power to throw Oro over towards Grim. Celeste reveals that Grim and Oro are both in love with Isla. She says there was never a bond breaker, but a bond maker. It allows powers to be transferred. Celeste transforms into her true form: Aurora, the original Starling ruler that was supposed to marry Oro’s brother, but he had fallen in love with Isla’s ancestor, Violet. She tricked Grim into giving her the heart saying she needed the most beautiful flower. Her sister and heir died in her place. She had a new face and personality every 25 years. Since she created the curses, she is immune to them. The bond maker can only be used once each way. She reveals that Isla’s father was actually from Nightshade. Her powers were merely cloaked by her Nightshade ability. She tells her that Grim was her accomplice. He tells her the original offense was the Sunning ruler falling in love with the Wilding ruler. He had to let Oro fall in love with her. Isla attacks Aurora, but the dagger shatters. It was the one she had picked out for her at the Starling shop. She plans to kill all the rulers that day. She uses the star stick to get back to her room.
54. Poppy comes to check on Isla, but Isla realizes that Poppy and Terra were in on the plan and knew that she had powers. Aurora had come to them and threatened to end the Wildlings completely. Poppy and Terra had killed her parents. She puts on armor and grabs weapons. She then uses her star stick. She promises to come back with power, but says she won’t see her or Terra ever again. She realizes Oro is the only one that hasn’t betrayed her and has to rescue him. She takes out the forrest at it attacks her. She makes her way to Aurora. The vines create a cage and she ties to use the star stick, but Aurora knocks it from her hand. Grim reminds her about the heart. She calls to it and it comes to her. She grabs the bond maker and stabs her palm and then Aurora’s chest. The ground opens up. Aurora falls and then the heart. Isla starts to fall and tries to use her powers, but she has no idea how to. A vine catches her and she realizes that someone she loves is using her power. Grim had also tried to use the power, but it hadn’t worked. Grim disappears into the night. The curses are broken.
55. Isla goes back to Wildling to inject her power into the ground and then goes back to the Lightlark castle. She stays in bed for a few weeks trying to get over the loss of her best friend. She covers her mirrors to prevent Grim from trying to communicate, but she still hears him begging her to remember them in her sleep. She finally makes it out, she sees Oro in the sunlight for the first time on the balcony. He admits when he first met her he thought she was trying to seduce him. He quickly realized that wasn’t the case. He fell for her anyway. She had returned the powers to their proper rulers, but doesn’t have anywhere to put Starlings.
56. The Place of Mirrors is still destroyed. Oro had borrowed power to heal the crack in the floor, but the castle is still ruined. She goes back with Oro and finds the crown is the key to the secret door.