Mira opens her mouth. The first note comes out cracked, salt-dry — she has not sung since the burning either. But the hollow hums the starting pitch back to her, patient, and she tries again. The melody leaves her differently than she expected. It is not grief she releases but something shaped like grief, older and more solid — a stone she has carried so long she forgot it had weight. The camel shifts behind her. The sand trembles. When she reaches the verse about the lantern in the window, her voice steadies. The hollow answers — not in echo but in harmony, a second voice woven beneath hers that could almost be her mother's. Then the song ends. Silence holds. The hollow widens. Inside, faint as starlight, something glints — pale and deliberate, as though it has been placed there for exactly this moment. Beneath her knees, the sand begins to warm from below.