Huntress by Malinda Lo

Goodreads:

Nature is out of balance in the human world. The sun hasn't shone in years, and crops are failing. Worse yet, strange and hostile creatures have begun to appear. The people's survival hangs in the balance.
To solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Tanlili, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls' destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love. But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever.

She was here because the Council of Sage believed the Fairy Queen knew something about why their kingdom was turning into a wasteland - place where crops spoiled overnight, where farmers couldn't replant because there was no sunlight.  Where monsters crawled out of their dark places and were found dead in northern villages, or were somehow reborn in the soft little bodies of human babies.  p. 103

I loved Kaede and Taisin.  They were a beautiful couple and their relationship develops at a sweet and slow pace allowing them to really think of about how they feel about each other.  Each girl has her own strengths and places to them very well.  Taisin is a gifted sage and Kaede is very strong and determined and become quite a good hunter.  It's those qualities that get them through their long adventure, allowing to them to carry out the tasks set before them.  They set out at the invitation of the Fairy Queen to find out what is happening in their kingdom and find many fantastic and sometimes horrific creatures waiting for them.  Yet they manage to persevere and complete their quest.

Where Ash was a retelling of the Cinderella story, Huntress has its own unique story to tell.  I loved it and thought was a truly lovely book, though a bit sad.  It is set a couple of hundred years before Ash and really tells the tale of how the Huntress position came to be. It moved along at nice pace though it did seem to take a long time for them to get to the Fairy Queen and it moved even quicker after that.  But I guess the background was necessary for what they found with the fey.  It is beautifully written and the imagery is amazing.