In this postapocalyptic fantasy, a sea of sand swallows everything but the past. In an endless sea of sand drifts the Mud Whale, a floating island city of clay and magic. In its chambers a small community clings to survival, cut off from its own history by the shadows of the past. The people of the Mud Whale have been trapped on the floating island since their ancestors were exiled to the Sea of Sand nearly a hundred years ago, yet their prison has mostly felt like a home. But now the true extent of the punishment inflicted on the criminals of Faláina has come to light, and the cost exacted by their home is immense.