Book One, The False Door, is set from 1350 onwards in the Inca Empire. Two illicit lovers travel on a dangerous journey of escape to the lake of gold in Muisca country, now Colombia. Ina is a young Chimu woman, who is imilla or Virgin of the Sun to the royal Inca household in the ancient Chimu of Chan Chan in the furthest north of the Inca Empire. Her lover is Nyam, a Moche man, from a coastal flax trading family. They are escaping the vengeance of the Inca royal household against their illegal union. They hide their child and she remains undiscovered. To save Ina from death at the hands of their Inca pursuers, Nyam kills her and then is killed himself. Their blood soaks the soil of the Musica lake to the far north of their lands, the sacred lake Guatavita. This murder of love resounds across other lives and continents and echoes through the lives of lovers, cursed by treading the bloody soil of the sacred lake, where the bodies of Ina and Nyam lie.