Yona Equa
A young Cherokee hunter in a world beginning to fracture.
Set in the southern Appalachians during the most violent decades of colonial expansion, Indigo: A Warrior's Burden follows Yona Equa, a young Cherokee hunter, as his world begins to fracture under the weight of a foreign culture spilling over the mountains. Change comes fast—iron, rifles, and sickness carried in the wake of trade. Yona clings to the old ways, even as the living earth grows restless.
The Cherokee do not see land as property; they view themselves as part of it. When chiefs begin trading ground for "peace," young warriors hear betrayal, not diplomacy.
Peace is bought with old men's marks on paper—and paid for with young men's blood on the ground.
For the clans, it is a time of uncertainty—blurred lines between peace and war, kin and stranger, honor and betrayal. Haunted by visions and shadowed by a coyote spirit, Yona and the warriors face betrayal and impossible choices as they fight to hold on to what matters: their people, their homeland, and the memory of who they were before the world changed.
A story of fierce love, quiet grief, and unyielding devotion, Indigo is both an elegy and a battle cry—an unforgettable portrait of the Aniyunwiya, the "Principal People."
Read it for yourself