The sun bore down on Al-Hayrah, a village built from sunbaked clay and patience. Dust curled in the wind like whispers through the narrow streets, carrying the scent of baking bread and animal dung. Life was hard here, the kind of hardness that seeped into bones and made even children move with the weariness of the old. Mercy had long since dried up, like the riverbed that ran through the outskirts of town.

She was the eldest of five, born to a weaver whose fingers had curled into twisted roots from age and poverty. The rough wool had worn away his fingerprints, just as life had worn away his smile. Her mother had died birthing the last child, her blood soaking into the same earth that now refused to yield enough crops to feed them all. Her father had debts owed in every corner of the village - to the baker, the cobbler, the water carrier - and when Jamil ibn Farouq came down from the highlands with coin in hand and a stern face, the decision was made without her blessing, without even consulting her.

“He gave me ten dinars and two cows for your hand in marriage,” her father said gruffly, not meeting her eyes. His voice was flat, as if discussing the price of grain rather than his daughter's future. The clay walls of their small house trapped the heat, making the air thick and hard to breathe. “That will feed the others until the next harvest. You’re the eldest. Your duty is done here.”

She didn’t cry. There was no point in tears that wouldn’t be noticed or remembered. She packed the few possessions she owned into a worn sack - a comb, a single copper bracelet her mother had left her, a threadbare shawl - and left with her head covered and her back straight, riding behind Jamil on his donkey toward what he called home: the edge of the known world.