Princess Natty of Orchidhali is a member of the floral caste and lives in a luxurious, sunshine-filled palace covered. Had she not neglected her studies of sacred texts and tradition, she'd have learned that refusing all of candidates presented to her for marriage would result in her death! She is forced to flee her palace and ends up in the dark realm of the Untouchables, the very lowest caste of society, where a strange form of leprosy reigns. One of the Untouchables, Sami, doesn't seem to suffer as badly as the others. As Natty develops a friendship with Sami, she discovers that he owes his relative beauty to his activity as a mushroom trafficker. In exchange for the valuable fungi, Sami obtains time exposed to the sun: in fact, it is the complete absence of sun from the Untouchables' realm that leads to their deformed bodies and skin. Together, Sami and Natty make a plan to leave the shadows of the underworld and return to the light. But just as they are about to make their escape, a battalion of soldiers arrives...
