#skammerserien

Dina (the girl) is of a family where all the women have the power to look people in the eye and make them feel shame/relive their most shameful moments. This usually makes them judges and revered wise women, but in a time where war and fascism starts to tear her world apart she and her family are hunted as witches or kidnapped and used against their will to break people.

As a result most people are too afraid to look her in the eye and it takes a special someone to overcome their own shame and look at them with familial care and love.

Enter Tano, who is a former Thrall/slave that Dina was forced to break because he kept preaching workers' rights to his lord - but who was so stubborn he and Dina ended up breaking each other. Quite literally. She spends the next couple of books unable to use her powers properly and spending time with people that reinforce the idea that she's a monster or a witch.

Until she meets Tano at the end of the story once more and they begin to stubbornly rebuild each other's self esteem and eventually caring deeply about each other, enabling Dina to do the impossible, casting shame upon an entire army and making grown men curl up and cry xD