“We must turn back,” I begged him.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“This is the valley of Haw’ab!” I shouted to him. “The Messenger warned me against it! Please! This mission had been cursed! We must abandon it!”

Talha looked up at me in confusion. And then I saw the hateful face of Marwan as he rode up beside my camel.

“You are mistaken, my Mother,” he said. “This is not Haw’ab. That valley is miles to the west.”

“You lie!” I cried out, but Marwan simply smiled and rode off, pointedly joining the train of his fellow Umayyad lords who had financed this expedition. Even if I wanted to turn back, the men whose gold had brought us here wished to continue. And one woman’s voice of conscience had no weight on the scales of power.

Talha gazed at Marwan and I saw a defeated look cross his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and then rode back to join Zubayr.

I felt steel talons gripping my heart, and I began to pray to Allah for protection from the darkness inside my own soul.

AND SO IT WAS that we at last came upon Ali’s encampment, deep in the heart of southern Iraq at a town called Basra. We had recruited sympathizers among the Bedouin tribes and some disgruntled Iraqis, and our army had now swelled to ten thousand, nearly equal to the fighting force of the Caliph.

Ever since the incident with the dogs of al-Haw’ab, the bloodlust had seeped out of my veins and I had no more desire for battle. And I could tell that Talha and Zubayr shared my feelings. The sight of an opposing army consisting of our fellow Muslims, the idea of shedding their blood, revolted us. And then an envoy from Ali arrived asking for a private meeting with me and the two Companions who led the army of Mecca.

OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL hours, we met in Ali’s simple command tent, not as enemies but as old colleagues who sat in wonder at how things could have gone so wrong between us. Ali apologized to Talha and Zubayr for the ungracious way in which he had assumed power, but he said quite convincingly that he felt there had been no other choice. With the death of Uthman, chaos had reigned, and he had sought only to reestablish order and justice to the caliphate.

“If you sought justice, then why did you not punish the assassins?” It was a question that came out of my mouth before I could stop it, and I saw that Talha and Zubayr looked relieved that I had said aloud what they had been too diplomatic to mention.

Ali sighed wearily.

“I am well aware that the assassins still live, and some of them have even joined my army, thinking that I am their patron when in truth I hold them in contempt.” He paused and then looked into my eyes, green meeting gold. “But what did you expect of me? I had no soldiers at my command at Medina. How could I have enforced the law and held these murderers accountable, when they held the entire city hostage? I needed to bring together the forces of the Ummah, and then I would have the power to avenge Uthman’s death.”

It was a simple statement of fact, said with such clarity that we realized at once that he was right. And then I bowed my head in shame, for I realized that I had been in the wrong the whole time.

And then a thought came to me and I suddenly felt my heart beating faster.

“You have the power now,” I said, a smile suddenly spreading beneath my veil. “We have ten thousand men under our command who are eager to hold the assassins accountable. And of the army you have gathered here, the rebels can only be a few hundred. If we combine forces, we can easily arrest them with little bloodshed.”

Ali looked at me for a long moment, and then he smiled, his mysterious eyes twinkling.

“Then perhaps all of this has happened for the best,” he said. “Satan tried to divide us, but God has brought us together again.”

And so it was decided that day that we would join forces and avenge the death of Uthman. The Umayyads would be satisfied with the trial and execution of the rebels (Ali had pardoned my own brother, as he had renounced the actions of the killers). And Ali could then reign legitimately as Caliph under a united empire. This terrible moment of fitna would be over, and the Muslims would continue to expand and grow as one community, spreading to every corner of the world the message of unity-there is no god but God.

We retired that night to our separate camps, praising God for saving us from the folly of our own passions. But even as we slept in security, thinking that civil war had been averted, Satan had other plans.

THE NEXT DAWN I awoke to shouts and cries of horror. I leaped up and threw on my veil, staring out from the opening of my private sleeping tent at the plain of Basra. And raised my hand to my mouth in shock at what I saw.

A contingent of Ali’s men had raided our camp, setting fire to tents and killing our soldiers in their sleep. The men of Mecca poured out onto the field, quickly donning their armor to respond to this treachery.

For an instant, I thought Ali had betrayed us, but then the rising sun revealed the faces of the marauders and I recognized them as the accursed Egyptian rebels whose penchant for violence had brought us to this terrible place. I realized that they must have learned of our plans to turn on them, and they had attacked preemptively, seeking to turn our armies against each other before we could unite against them.

I raced out into the field, calling for the men to stop fighting. But it was too late. Blood had been spilled and the madness of battle was flowing through their veins. Our soldiers raced across the field to avenge themselves on Ali’s men, and the nightmare that we had sought to avert was upon us.

Civil war.

As arrows and spears began to fly all around me, I raced to the safety of my armored howdah. My brave camel rose and tried to pull me to safety, but there was nowhere to run. The fighting had begun in earnest, and the two armies of Muslims came rushing out into the field, hatred consuming them as they fought their brothers like savage beasts.

I felt tears flowing down my face as I saw swords clashing and the beautiful emerald grass turn dark with the blood of the believers. Blood that had been spilled not by idolaters or the hordes of foreign empires but by their fellow Muslims. I screamed at the top of my lungs, calling out to the men whom I called my sons to stop killing one another, but my voice was lost in the terrible din of war.

As the madness spread, my camel was soon swimming in a sea of twenty thousand men who clashed brutally all around. Arrows struck my carriage from all sides, and yet the multiple layers of ringed armor saved me, even though my howdah was beginning to look like the shell of a porcupine.

I managed to watch the unfolding battle through a small hole in the curtain, but all I could see was a blur of blood and death, and the terrible stench of defecation and decay made me want to wretch.

My camel tried to shift away from the carnage, but everywhere it went, waves of enemy soldiers were upon us. And then I realized with deep horror that they were chasing me-the warriors of Ali were hunting me down. Somehow I had become the symbol of the entire rebellion, and they had made me the vaunted prize, the target of their fury.

I had become a vortex of death.

And then I heard in my head a terrible cold laughter and I felt something burning on my forearm. I looked down and my eyes went wide in horror.

I was wearing Hind’s gold armlet.

She had given it to me that day when Mecca fell, the last day I had seen her. I had wanted to throw it away, but some small part of me was fascinated by the dark beauty of the entwined snakes with their ruby heart. I had told myself that it was just one small, meaningless trinket, and I had locked it away inside the trunk that held my few valuables, including the onyx necklace that had nearly destroyed my life. Over the years I would look at the armlet from time to time, examine its fine craftsmanship, but I had never worn it.