At the beginning of World War I, the governor of Gawar warns Shlomo, a successful Jewish merchant, against the upcoming events on the Turko-Persian border. "Take your family and flee," he advises. "Robbers and looters do not distinguish between Jewish and Christian blood." Jewish Almaz and Assyrian Ishtar are separated at an early age. They both struggle to survive the Armenian-Assyrian Genocide. While Ishtar loses everything including her sanity, Almaz and her family find refuge in Mosul and later settle in Urmia, a town alternately invaded and devastated by the Turks, the Kurds, and the...