Nightbane

Nightbane is a fantasy novel by the American writer Alex Aster, published in 2023 as the follow-up to her novel Lightlark.

The first book was built around a competition between rulers, and this one deals with what a victory of that kind leaves behind: Isla is now the leader of two separate realms, her authority is recent and contested, and there are people close to her who do not believe she earned it. Her response to the betrayal is to spend her time in the places on Lightlark where nobody asks her questions, which gives the novel a different atmosphere from its predecessor and lets the reader see a crowned ruler behaving badly. Aster keeps the curses, the secret origins and the rival rulers in play, and the threat moving towards the island gives the book its deadline. The bargain that produced Isla's powers, the two rulers who both have a claim on her and the question of what her otherworldly parents left inside her are all still open, and the novel keeps its answers close until the end. The series continued with a third volume, and the setting's islands, courts and ancient bargains are the machinery of a story about who is allowed to hold power.