Mira was helping stack the festival baskets beside the courtyard gate when the wind changed.
A little while ago, the day had felt bright and ordinary. The clay pots along the wall were warm in the sun. The cracked cistern sat quiet in the middle. Tariq had been carrying folded cloths to the bake nook, and Nura had been checking the lantern hooks with her neat, careful hands.
Then the sand began to hiss.
It came in low and fast, like dry water. It slapped the whitewashed wall, swirled around the gate, and piled into a little dune right where the delivery would need to come through. Mira stared at the baskets. One held fresh figs and soft cheese, and another held paper lanterns wrapped so gently they looked ready to sneeze apart.
“We have to keep these safe,” Mira said, pressing her wrist bead with her thumb.
Tariq leaned toward the gate and squinted into the blur. “I can open it before the sand gets worse.”
Nura shook her head at once. “Not through there. The gate is already too tight.”
Mira listened to the wind scratching at the wood. The delivery was still coming. The gate was blocked. And the baskets were right there, waiting in the wrong place.
She looked from the sand piled against the exit to the narrow stair that climbed to the roof, then back to the baskets. There had to be another way to shelter the food and lanterns before the storm pressed in harder. But which way should they try first?
What happens next?
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