"They were here before kings, before empires-before the world forgot their names." In the scorched heart of precolonial Africa, where the wind carries whispers of the ancients, two boys-ǂKhara, a San hunter marked by vengeance, and Goroa, a Khoikhoi herder bound by pride-are forged in blood and fire. When a brutal raid leaves ǂKhara orphaned, his quest for justice collides with Goroa's loyalty to a fading way of life. But neither knows their feud is a spark in the storm of a greater darkness: the Bantu expansion, a tide of iron and fire, and the arrival of colonizers with hunger for land and bodies.