Books like Curse of the Black Heron (Bard's Tale) by Holly Lisle

Isbetta -- Izzy to her friends -- had happy memories from when she was very young, and her father had been one of the greatest Bards in the land. But that was before she was given over to a foster mother who raised her in poverty, apprenticing her to a weaver. Izzy had looked forward to being free of both her apprenticeship and her foster mother, when she could make her own living as a weaver, and that time was only nineteen days away.Then a new ruler seized the throne of her country by force, and Izzy and her friend Giraud, only surviving heir of an out-of-favor Lord, were running for their lives. They would be pursued by assassins, captured by a monster who demanded that they free it from a curse, make friends with a dwarf, and be entrusted with a spell that was supposed to remake the world into a paradise -- a spell with a fatal flaw. And Izzy would find that her father had not abandoned her, but had been murdered by a mysterious figure known as the Black Heron. Determined to find the Black Heron, she would search using her newly discovered powers as a Bard. Unfortunately, she lacked any Bardic training, and was much too powerful a Bard for her own good -- and perhaps, for the good of the whole world.

First publish date: 1998