Summary

In the prologue, Dessa has a dream where her lover Kaine is calling out to her, playing his banjo, and singing. Then they make love and Dessa does not want the moment to end. She wakes from the dream and feels the chains around her ankles, remembering where she is.

In Chapter 1 of The Darky, Adam Nehemiah records Dessa's stories while talking to her in the cellar. Though he asks her to describe her escape from the coffle, Dessa recounts her relationship with Kaine instead. She tells Nehemiah after their master broke Kaine's banjo, Kaine attacked him, later killing him. Dessa then attacked the master and is sold to slave trader, Wilson. Wilson does not know about the attack, nor about the significant scars on her thighs and pelvic region. While on a coffle, Dessa instigates a slave revolt, killing several white...