The desert nomads have a saying: "When something is broken it should never be discarded. So long as the pieces remains, the whole can be remade." A time of trials, war and terror is coming to the desert city of M'Dahz, the Empire's southern bastion. As the Empire's government falters and crumbles, the people suffer. But Samir, Ghassan and Asima, childhood friends and citizens of M'Dahz, are about to discover that while people change the world, the world also changes people and that the best and worst of folk are forged in hardship.