Mercer Frey returns from Snow Veil Sanctum - alone. The Dragonborn's lover is left to mourn her loss. But when she returns to Riften, alive, there's a question he needs to ask her. One he's been planning to ask for a long time.

Upon the death of Alduin, the Dragonborn founded an order. An alliance of mortals and dragons, who would defend Skyrim against any evil that threatened it. But they could not have foreseen the enemy that a band of necromancers would create, or the army that would rise to follow him. If the Dragonhearts fall now, Skyrim falls. And so the Dragonborn's daughter must seek her destiny.

Why is Jenassa's hirer so silent and cold? Why is he so reluctant to answer the Greybeards' call from High Hrothgar? And what does he have against that maidservant in the Bannered Mare? When two strangers come to Whiterun searching for a Redguard woman, Jenassa begins to make surprising discoveries about the Dragonborn – and maybe a few about herself.