The 1757 New York frontier is home to the Oneida tribe and to British colonists, yet their feet rarely walk the same paths. On the day Fort William Henry falls, Major Reginald Aubrey is beside himself with grief. His son, born that day, has died in the arms of his sleeping wife. When Reginald comes across an Oneida mother with newborn twins --- one white, one brown --- he makes a choice that will haunt the lives of all involved. As a long-buried truth comes to light, can an unlikely friendship forged at the wood’s edge provide a way forward?

In an act of brave defiance, Tamsen Littlejohn escapes the life her harsh stepfather has forced upon her. Forsaking security and an arranged marriage, she enlists frontiersman Jesse Bird to guide her to the Watauga settlement in western North Carolina. But shedding her old life doesn’t come without cost. As the two cross a vast mountain wilderness, Tamsen faces hardships that test the limits of her faith and endurance.

Abducted by Mohawk Indians at fourteen and renamed Burning Sky, Willa Obenchain is driven to return to her family’s New York frontier homestead after many years building a life with the People, but finds that much has changed in her absence. When her Mohawk brother arrives and questions her place in the white world, the cultural divide blurs Willa’s vision. Can she follow him back to the People now that she is no longer Burning Sky?