Amenkor Series by Joshua Palmatier

He's doing a bit of a promo and he picked the cover of his upcoming German edition "Die Assassine", heh - giving a bit of a hint for a competition he has. The story is truly dramatic, but BY GOD, the main heroine has to go through the darkest depths of despair in the first half of the first book, so don't read that unless you're in a fairly up mood or don't usually feel alongside the characters... The horrible things that she has to experience and do halted my reading at that point.

The author also runs the dawbooks community here on LJ.