For the people of the land Dowager Royina Ista is a free woman who is leading a simple life but she was in hell just three years ago. She was locked in a castle because she was cursed but now she is free as a feather. This again is just the outside look of her personality, from the inside she still feels those pains that she beard alone. Now she wants some free time for herself so she sets upon a pilgrimage. With some friends or fellows she moves on until another catastrophe hit her and her fellows. Death was going to snatch her this time but a warrior appears out of nowhere and saves her life. Danger has surrounded her and in this situation she thinks that it is a wise decision to be with the warrior for some time. When she enters the castle of this mighty warrior she realizes that there is something familiar about it.
It looks like that the gods have chosen her yet again for an uphill task and this time the warrior is her ally. If you have heard the lament scenes in The Warrior’s Apprentice and Memory then you can understand the torment through which Ista is going through. She wants to cry sky high but the author Lois McMaster Bujold hasn’t given her ample time to cry. She just gets engaged into one war and then another with the fate of humanity resting in his hands. Kate Reading is a specialist with female characters, the narrator gives the character such life like sound that it becomes real in our minds forever.
