Across the Sunlit Andes

"We don't leave a place when it stays in our heart," Chasca encouraged her children. "Return to Cuzco one day. Look to Kuntur. The condor will show you a way."
Though Incan royalty, Isabel Ylla and her brother Tomás grew up in the aristocratic decorum of Spanish hidalgo nobility, detached by distance and discipline from their homeland and heritage.

When an arranged marriage is decided for Isabel Ylla, she encourages her husband Don Toledo to pursue a golden opportunity that will bring him wealth and carry her back to her people. But when the aging merchant passes away shortly after their arrival in Peru, Isabel Ylla finds herself at odds with the Spaniard who holds power over the land.

She finds in procurator Sebastián de Huaylas, himself a mestizo of Incan royalty with powerful connections in Spanish colonial influence, a kindred spirit who shares her vision and desires for change. "We are the same," she tells him, both torn between the lives they know and the world in which they want to live.

As the pair teeter between tension and desire, their two hearts soar like Kuntur in the budding love that blooms between them.
"You are a Capac woman, but you are also a mestiza. You can step between both worlds, where most of us can't. Take that power and use it," Isabel Ylla is urged, as she begins to revive the spirit of Cuzco and her ayllu.
With Sebastián's support and that of his father's associates, Isabel Ylla faces an opponent only she can vanquish.
Will the strength of her sword, power of her intellect, and guidance of Kuntur be enough to free the warrior princess and her people from the restrictions imposed upon them? Can Isabel Ylla unite the Spanish and the Inca in harmony and peace?
Follow Across the Sunlit Andes on a journey through love and legacy in the Inca Empire!