The novel presents an alternate world where an Islamic Africa is the center of technological progress and learning while Europe remains largely tribal and backward.

Legend held that the steel blade was smelted from a fallen meteorite by Benin smiths, its white-hot length quenched in the living blood of a lion".

[1] The story begins with Aidan O'Dere, a White European child growing up in a primitive 19th century Ireland with his pagan father, Christian mother, and his twin sister.

They are later sold to black slave merchants in Andalus and taken to Bilalistan (southeastern North America) by the Middle Passage.

There at a slave auction Aidan's sister is separated from them and sold off as a maidservant, while Aidan and his mother are sold to a Wakil named Abu Ali Jallaleddin ibn Rashid al Kushi, owner of a plantation called Dar Kush.

Dar Kush is known for its lenient treatment of the white slaves, going as far as allowing them to keep their native religion, culture, and language.

The Wakil has three children: Ali, the oldest son; Elenya, the youngest child and only daughter; and the middle child and younger son Kai, an awkward, shy boy who feels that he will never live up to his father's expectations.

Aidan, finally with something worth fighting for, begins to chafe at the bonds of his slavery, which drives a wedge further between the two friends.

Promising freedom to all of the slaves who came with the army, the Bilalians manage a victory by destroying the Shrine of the Fathers with most of the surviving Aztec forces inside it.

He grew up in the O’Dere crannog in Eire, was captured by Viking raiders when he was a boy, and was sold into slavery.

She suffers a miscarriage during the middle passage but convinces the slave auctioneers to keep Aidan with her by demonstrating her ability to write.