An herbalist and free Black woman, Kindred Twain, and Lelaheo of the Oneida Nation have been inseparable since childhood. They have been raised together in the Mohawk River Valley on Twainhaven Farm, an idyllic refuge, run by their benefactor Doctor Douglas Twain during the Colonial era. The doctor had liberated Kindred, her grandmother, and another little boy named Joshua from slavery and certain death on a Maryland tobacco plantation and had brought the three North to his estate and freedom. Lelaheo had initially been placed, by his well-intentioned family, with the seemingly kind Rev. Harkness for schooling to help him navigate the dominant White world. At the rector's home, Lelaheo is renamed Cassian Harkness.

At the church school he also met Kindred. But their "schooling" soon morphed into mistreatment. A mistreatment whose results were witnessed one day by Doctor Twain. The children's "schooling" abruptly ended that day with the doctor removing them from the church school and taking Lelaheo out of the abusive rector's care permanently. From that day forward, the physician took on their schooling himself.

So, in growing up together, it comes as no surprise to anyone that Kindred's and Lelaheo's close childhood friendship blossoms into love as they reach adulthood. Declaring their love one night, they agree to wait to wed after Lelaheo returns from completing his medical studies in Europe. However, neither one has any idea that the fledgling colonies will revolt against British tyranny, starting the Revolutionary War or that peaceful Twainhaven will soon be thrown into chaos, or that the opportunistic sister of one of Lelaheo's medical school classmates has a plan to tear the couple apart forever.