Easy to forget one of the appeals of heroic fantasy was always the story of the olw-born orphan or apprentice or outcast who rises through many adventures and hardships and acquiring stalwart companions to defeat evil and save the day - it's the folkloric fairy-tale roots that are as intrinsic to the genre as the historical epic. Heroic deeds sone selflessly and at great cost seems to be out of fashion - and no wonder, it became perniciously riddled with lazy cliches - but the appeal is still there. Hence, this enjoyable first volume wherein a fostered boy and an orphaned and enslaved girl seperately begin their climb to dizzy heights and heroic deeds as a kingdom is beset from the outside by vicious raiders and the inside by a treacherous rebellion, both suspiciusly assisted with strange sorceries. Great worldbuilding - writers often overlook the importance of religion in people's lives in the medieval settings they're mirroring or adapting - and lots of intrigue and action and magic. the girl's enslavement is harrowing, both physically and psychologically traumatising, but it doesn't feel gratuitous or there purely for shock or wallowing in grimdark. There's lots of volumes of this ahead, I hope the quality holds.