Highwatch has never been taken. The fortress has sat, undisturbed for over a century, high above Narfell's frozen plains. The line of the High Warden runs unbroken down to his seventeen-year-old granddaughter, Hweilan. It is a place of peace in the wilderness.

But one among Highwatch isn't at peace. Guric, the foster son of the High Warden, makes a pact with an ancient, evil spirit to resurrect his wife. The price: his family's blood. Highwatch falls in less than a day. The line of the High Warden is broken. Only Hweilan escapes, her father's unstrung bow in hand and her heart full of vengeance.

Vengeance enough to drive Hweilan to make her own pact with an ancient spirit: Nendawen, the Master of the Hunt, primal spirit of the shapechanging Vil Adanrath.

Hweilan is the last of the line of Highwatch and -- as she discovers -- one of the last of the Vil Adanrath, a bloodline of lycanthropes left on Faerûn. Guric, her uncle and the slayer of Hwelian's family, has released a terrible evil in order to resurrect his beloved wife and gain control of the northern countries. When Hweilan escapes Guric's schemes, she is taken in by Lendri, a Vil Adanrath who has stayed in Faerûn to help guide Hweilan to her fate.

Epic struggles as a young woman comes of age in the Forgotten Realms world...

Nendawen the Hunter has accepted Hweilan's sacrifice and claimed her as one of his. Now she must learn to truly become a hunter so that she may take on the powers of Nendawen and avenge her family. But while Nendawen's faithful forge the young woman into a brutal killer, the undead forces of Jagen Ghen have found a way into Nendawen's sanctuary in the Feywild.

For generations we fought him, but he grew stronger, destroying our homeland. We fled. ...

The demon Jagun Ghen, the nemesis of Nendawen the Hunter, roams the frozen wastes, building an army. For long years, Hweilan, the last scion of fallen Highwatch and the loose end of the Defiler's plans, has been missing.

In the Hunting Lands, Jagun Ghen almost conquered. Only hundreds of years of blood and sacrifice vanquished him. Here... in this corrupt world beneath its cold stars... Here... Jagun Ghen could become a god. ...

For long years, in the cold places of the Feywild, Hweilan has been shaped into a tool to bring down Jagun Ghen and a weapon to avenge her dead family with - the Hand of the Hunter. But even in the Feywild, Jagun Ghen has eyes.

There are far crueler things in these woods than me.

Hweilan went into the Feywild a girl focused on avenging her family's death, and emerged a brutal killer. Nendawen the Hunter has anointed her his Hand in destroying the demonic and undead forces of his nemesis - the murderer of her family - Jagen Ghen. But while she managed to survive long enough to become the Hand of the Hunter, the war with Jagen Ghen has just begun. And while she is hunting them - they are likewise hunting her. It will take every trick of the Fox, every drop of Lore, and every ounce of will she has to stand against Jagen Ghen, but Hweilan will have her chance to avenge her family - or die trying.