Reisil is raised by a village after being abandoned an hour after her birth by her parents. The story starts with her as a young woman finally finding her place as a tark, a healer, and soon her village will declare her their tark. Once they do her cottage and village will become her true and permanent home. However, the Blessed Lady chooses her to be an ahalad-kaaslane - the judges, spies, and explorers of the land of Kodu Riik. They are bound to know one but the Lady Herself. Reisil rejection doesn't just affect her, the goshawk who needs her, but the entire safety of Kodu Riik from the horrors of war rests on her shoulders.
The protagonist Reisil is not too different from Karigan in the Green Rider series as far personality and their reluctance of taking up their new role in the novels. It was good light, simple, and short, but an intense read too. The story was relatively straight-forward. The dilemma and the character growth and development is very intriguing and realistic. I love the bond each of the ahalad-kaaslane have with their creature especially Saljane and Reisil. I am fascinated that Francis decided to make Reisil's goshawk female. Usually, the creature is often the opposite gender of the protagonist like Harry and Hedwig, Eragon and Saphira, Lyra and Pan, Karigan and Condor.
The only two downsides I found was the lack of information on certain areas like explaining of the Blessed Lady and the Demon Lord. There was no explanation in the beginning who the Lady really was, but somewhere in the middle of story did I get an idea. I'm sure this might have been the intent to make me keep reading, but I was already willing to go the extra mile to see if it would be interesting. The other downside is the structure like knowing exactly how Kodu Riik functioned as kingdom or realm. I also would have liked to know more about Reisil's parents like they somehow had more of an important role, but I'm sure the other two books might explain them.
