The voice is her mother's — that unhurried cadence, the warmth that never hurried toward its point. "What you carry is not yours to open," it says. "Not here. Not until the salt ridge." The sand figure's interior turns again, the amber glow at its core brightening like a coal catching breath; the spiral groove seals between syllables, as though each word costs the shape something it cannot recover. "The burning did not end with the city. It is still moving. It follows heat — and that vessel grows warmer with every hour you stand still." Against her ribs the pulse trips double and then faster. The figure shifts sideways by a matter of inches, leaving the narrowest gap between its column and the black rock face — barely enough for a loaded camel to squeeze through. It is not an invitation. It is a clock. Mira's hands tighten on the reins, and the desert waits for her to choose.