Winter of the year 1003 AD

*****************

On a very cold rainy evening, a woman in shabby clothes stood in front of the door of one of the palaces of the merchants of Baghdad, looking at the palace coldly.

She looked at the large door handles with corroded iron, waiting for the guard who told her that he would return in a few moments. The woman appeared to be in her thirties, wearing a hooded abaya, and several gray strands protruded

contrary to the dark blackness of her hair from under the abaya.

The woman waited for about a quarter of an hour until the guard appeared in his black clothes and his dark, frowning face

from behind the door, repeating that his lady was waiting for her.

The woman advanced to enter the house, looking around the hall,

everything looked beautiful and elegant, as a fountain stood in the middle of the entrance to the house, and to her right was a garden

in the middle of which was a simple sitting area with a canopy to protect the carpets from getting wet.

•

•

A young maid came out to her and asked her to follow her to her mistress's room. The woman did so and followed the maid.

She passed through the kitchen entrance and the stove was lit, adding warmth to its corners. There was another maid, close to the first in age, busy washing some vegetables in a copper water basin and did not notice the two women passing.

The two women passed several rooms and then headed to the upper floor through wooden stairs and stopped in front of one of the rooms with a dark wooden door. The maid knocked on the door and a female voice allowed her to enter.

The two women entered, one of them stood at the door and the other walked forward, whispering something to her mistress.

Then she was about to leave.

The room was empty of sounds except for the sound of wood consuming under the fire of the fireplace.

The woman raised her head as she heard the voice of the owner of the house.

:- What was your name?

Her voice was soft as the flutter of a dove, and the features of fatigue and exhaustion appeared on her face. 

However, her eyes had a sparkle that pulsated with strength. 

The woman answered: 

- I am Zahra, my lady. 

The lady nodded her head, and then her voice came out strong and stern. 

- You know what I want from you, don't you? 

Zahra smiled as she answered proudly. 

- Of course I know, 

Like all the women of the state and the harem of the King of Kings, you want to know the news of the future. You want to uncover what is hidden in the seas of the unseen. 

The lady nodded her head and exclaimed as she touched her belly, which had begun to protrude, revealing that she was carrying a child in her womb. 

- I want to know.. Will my next child be a boy? 

Zahra looked at the woman's belly and extended her hand

towards a cloth bag wrapped around her waist and some sand and seashells came out of it and was about to sit on the ground in the middle of the room and was about to throw the sand and shells all at once.

•

•

The lady watched Zahra as she mumbled incomprehensible words

and began to move her head right and left quietly,

The lady soon stared at her

until Zahra began to tremble

and her breathing became disturbed, so the woman stood up and walked towards her heavily

to exclaim in uncontrollable panic.

:- What's the matter? Why are you trembling like this! What's wrong with you?

Zahra's voice came out deep, matching the depth of her gaze

:- Nothing about you appeared to me in the horoscope,

but what related to the child appeared in your womb.

The woman shouted in a voice tinged with happiness

:- Will it be a boy?

Zahra smiled as she answered with crazy features and a voice that echoed in the room

:- She will be a daughter and when you are blessed with her and she grows up to become a woman

She will break all your norms and will be like a hurricane in this family and he will be waiting for her there, where he will rise from the ashes of death

A dragon will hover over the sky of her life,

And from the spears of love her wounds will bleed;

And blood will flow and her horizons will be dyed with it,

Then she will see him for who he really is..

A flame that lights up the darkness of her days,

And the blood was nothing but..

A sacrifice for her wedding day.

Zahra felt the woman standing in front of her as she trembled

With anger and her features changed to disgust, so she suddenly screamed

Holding her stomach

:- How can I believe the words of a witch fortune teller like you! Get out of my house, you ominous harbinger, and don't let me see your ugly face again. 

Zahra laughed mockingly 

:- Ominous witch!! Let me tell you then.. 

Your husband will never have a son, and even if he marries another woman 

He will only give birth to girls and will die of grief and sorrow 

Because he will never be satisfied with what was written for him in the skys. 

• 

Zahra went out of the house and the rain suddenly intensified to remember what she saw 

A little while ago, so she started laughing and the sound of her laughter was muffled by the sounds of thunder that began to strike in the sky as if it was warning of stormy days 

With no mercy and no decision except annihilation.