In the heart of the desert, where the sun hammered down with a fiery determination that could split rocks and the wind whispered secrets that only the shifting sands understood, there was a village. It was a cluster of mud-brick houses, huddled together like a family shielding their young from the unforgiving world outside. Life here was a constant battle against the elements, a dance with the capricious dunes that crept closer each year, eager to swallow the village whole. Yet, the people remained, entwined in a delicate balance with the harsh beauty of the desert. Mariam was one of the villagers, a girl of thirteen summers with skin the color of sun-kissed wheat and eyes that reflected the ever-changing hues of the desert. Her days were filled with the rhythmic chores of her mother: hauling water from the distant well, grinding grain into flour, and tending to the few hardy plants that clung to the precarious edge of life in their tiny garden. But her nights were her own, a stolen s