Nightbane

Oro is the ruler of the Sunling realm and the king of Lightlark. His life is bound to the island, and as a result of his position he is able to wield Sunling, Starling, Skyling, and Moonling powers. Through his love bond with Isla, he is also able to access her Wildling abilities.

Oro is described as having blond hair and golden eyes, and his powers mean that he often emanates heat when he is feeling strong emotions. Oro is characterized as kind, brave, and loyal, and he has the magical ability to detect truth and lies. He is a benevolent king and often sacrifices his own well-being to serve his people. Enya points out that since he began a relationship with Isla, Oro has been neglecting some of his duties as a king because she has been a distraction.

Since Isla has just discovered that she has magical powers, Oro spends time teaching her how to use them throughout the novel. He warns her that keeping a handle on her emotions is crucial so she does not get overwhelmed and lose control of her magic. He is very supportive and protective of Isla, both agreeing to follow her plans to defend Lightlark and warning her against potential dangers, including her own self-destructive tendencies. At the end of the novel, Isla leaves Oro to go with Grim. She does so to protect him because, although she loves Oro, she is horrified by her own moral failings and wants to distance herself from him. Indeed, throughout the story, Isla struggles to open up to Oro because he is highly moral and honest, and she is afraid of corrupting him with her own darkness. The novel ends on a cliffhanger, foreshadowing the resolution of Oro, Isla, and Grim’s love triangle in the rest of the series.

Grimshaw, or Grim, is one of Isla’s love interests. She initially believes him to be her enemy until she recovers enough memories of her relationship with him to realize that they are genuinely in love. As a result, Grim is an ambivalent character who first appears antagonistic but is later revealed to have more complex motivations.

Isla describes Grim as attractive and intimidating:

Something about the way the air moved around him, about the resonance of his step. He was the tallest man she had ever seen, a foot and a half taller than her at least. He had relatively long black hair like spilled ink, falling across his forehead, curling around his ears. His mouth seemed set in a permanent frown. Unimpressed (57).

Indeed, Grim is the ruler of the Nightshade realm and, as such, wields various abilities, such as teleportation, sensing emotions, or killing magically. He is very powerful and has a reputation as a dark, violent, and tyrannical leader.

Throughout the novel, flashbacks to Isla’s past depict her relationship with Grim in the previous year and inform his characterization. Despite her initial impression of him, Isla thus gradually realizes that Grim is also caring and loyal, both to her and to his people. Contrary to Oro, Grim believes that emotions are a strong catalyst for magical abilities, and he encourages Isla to draw from her pain to become more powerful. As a result, he represents the more impulsive, and perhaps self-destructive, inclination to Oro’s reasonable but more repressive side.

As for Grim’s motivations, Isla believes at first that he intends to use an enchanted sword to control the dreks and attack Lightlark. However, she later learns that Grim only wants to destroy Lightlark to save Isla’s life, who he has bound to him after she died in battle. At the end of the book, Grim reveals that he and Isla got married in secret, and Isla decides to follow him, which sets up new challenges for them to overcome in the rest of Aster’s series.

Enya is one of Oro’s closest friends, a Sunling described as “a tall woman, made up of about a thousand freckles, her hair the color of rust” (10). She and Oro’s group of childhood friends also includes Calder and Zed, and the four of them are often depicted exchanging friendly banter while ruling Lightlark together.

Enya is characterized as brash, friendly, and smart. When Isla needs help to organize food supplies for the Wildlings, Enya uses her strategic skills and teaches them how to grow and store food in the long term. Enya also volunteers to go with Isla to the Vinderlands’ territory, which reveals her brave and supportive nature. Significantly, her actions are informed by the fact that the oracle has told her exactly when she would die. Enya explains to Isla: “I think of it as a gift. I know when I die, so I can spend every day until then living to the fullest. You and Oro seem to get lost in your minds, thinking about the past, future—I spend most of my time in the present” (213).

Despite her friendship with Isla, however, Enya is afraid that the Wildling ruler is distracting Oro from his duties as a king. She is afraid that his relationship makes Oro, and therefore Lightlark, weaker. This foreshadows the evolution of Enya’s character in Aster’s series and directly informs Isla’s choice to follow Grim at the end of the novel.