The story takes place in the region of Kastoria in two time periods. The past, featuring the teenage years of the protagonists, alternates with the present, where we meet the heroes at approximately 40 years of age.

The serene lives of a group of children are shaken up, causing seismic tremors, by the first romantic stirrings. The love of a woman changes the dynamics, dissolving the unbreakable bonds of friendship, leading some of the heroes to extremes, and driving them to the abyss, despair, and death.

An avalanche of events plunges the reader into a world of passion, deprivation, and pain, as a spectator and participant in a “rigged” chessboard with the pieces moved by an unpredictable God.

And hope? Is there hope for the heroes? Has it been lost in the passage of time and the hardships of life, or will the flame be rekindled, change everything, and bring redemption?