Third and final volume in a trilogy of fantasy novels telling of Reisil. Via a mystical bonding with a Goshawk she has risen from a village healer to a warrior who is the only hope for her kingdom when civil war and a magical threat both come at the same time.
This follows on from previous volumes
Path of Fate and
Path of Honor (Path of Fate) and picks up from where the second one left off. Thus there are no concessions for new readers and even returning ones will take a few pages to pick everything back up again, so start with the earlier volumes rather than this.
It runs for four hunded and fifty two pages and forty three chapters and Reisil doesn't figure in all of them, as whilst she's out doing what she can to deal with the magical threat other characters are dealing with the war. A vivid description of places under siege follows, considering in depth what would result. Such as the need for supplies and metals. The big scope of the kingdom does make for a convincing picture of a land in turmoil, with characters not being privy to everything.
The war is brutal and there are scenes with the discovery of horrible things done by raiding bands. But these aren't graphic and there aren't that many.
As the plot strands move along you suddenly realise that there's only a hundred pages to go and may start to wonder around page three hundred and fifty if it will all be wrapped up in a satisfactory manner. Thankfully it then manages to do just that.
This doesn't break new ground for the genre and it doesn't contain anything you won't have read before if you're a fan of the genre, but it's a good read and a decent end to the story.