I turned my back on Ali and went to help Umm Salama comfort a youth who had lost his hand in the siege.

Safiya gazed out in grief across the ranging maelstrom of death that had once been a city. The Muslims had breached the outer walls and had brought the battle to the heart of the oasis. Her people had been taken by surprise for a second time in the past week, and most of the Jewish army was scattered outside the fortified battlements in a fruitless hunt for an attacker that was hiding in plain sight.

With the fall of the defensive outpost at Naim, the dam had been broken and the flood of Arab soldiers had reached the streets near the grand council chamber where, only days before, the elders had been celebrating the new alliance with Byzantium. Even as the elite soldiers led by Ali decimated the few Jewish defenders inside the beleaguered city, other Muslim troops were busy securing the wells and taking positions on the mighty walls, where their archers were busy raining death on the surprised warriors of Khaybar, who were now trapped outside their own walls. It was a humiliating turnaround, as Jews desperately attempted to get back inside the homes that were now occupied by the Arabs they had been pursuing.

Safiya stood on the roof of the council chamber, staring down over the stone ramparts as her people emerged from their homes in surrender, begging Muhammad’s men for clemency. On the horizon she could see clouds of black smoke hovering over the mighty castles of Natat and Shiqq, and she knew the battle was over. The fortresses were the pride of the people of Khaybar, capable of resisting any attack from without. But no one had thought to protect them from within, and the Jewish defense was now overrun.

She looked over to her father, who was staring in utter shock at the ruins of the city that was to have been the capital of the new Byzantine province of Arabia. Huyayy’s gray eyes were brimming with tears, as the complete defeat of his people could no longer be denied. And she knew that he realized, at long last, that there was no one to blame for this tragic outcome but himself.

Safiya should have felt sorry for him. She should have reached out and embraced him like a dutiful daughter, succored him as he faced the failure of his life’s work. But there was no sympathy left in her heart for Huyayy, a man who had stubbornly marched his nation over a precipice. Her father had deluded himself into imagining that he was capable of orchestrating the defeat of all their enemies, not only conquering Arabia but restoring the Jewish birthright to the Holy Land.

Huyayy knelt down and began to pray fervently to God, asking for mercy on the Jewish people. And then her miserable husband, Kinana, knelt beside him and patted Huyayy’s hair like a woman comforting a child.

“Do not despair,” Kinana said in his lisp that she found so repulsive. “There is still hope for victory.”

Safiya finally exploded. “No!” she screamed, with such ferocity that Kinana recoiled in surprise. “There will be no victory! Have you men learned nothing? We were the last Jews of Arabia and you have brought doom upon us with your intrigues!”

“None could have foreseen this,” Huyayy said, desperately trying to shirk responsibility for the disaster that he had wrought.

Safiya had had enough. She grabbed her father by his robes and lifted to him to face her.

“Only a fool could not have foreseen this!” she said, no patience for self-deception left in her heart.

Kinana placed a cold hand on her wrist and pushed her away from the old man.

“How dare you speak to your father this way!” he said, his lips curled into an ugly snarl.

But Safiya no longer cared what he or anyone else thought. If she was to die today as Khaybar fell to the invading forces, she would die with truth on her lips. Consequences be damned.

“I wish I had spoken this way years ago!” she said, spitting at Kinana’s feet. “Then perhaps my father would have listened to reason and we would not be facing extinction!”

Her husband moved forward, his hand raised to strike her, but Huyayy stopped him.

“She is right,” the Jewish chieftain said, his voice trembling with shame. “My pride has brought us to this place.”

Kinana looked at him in shock. “It is not over!” he shouted, stamping his foot like a spoiled child. “The soldiers of Byzantium will soon come to our aid!”

Huyayy shook his head.

“No. It will take weeks for Heraclius to mobilize his army. Even if we push the Arabs back outside the walls, we will run out of food and water long before then.”

Safiya saw that her father had finally accepted the truth. The fire of her rage flickered and went out, and she was left with a dull emptiness in her heart. Anger and grief were pointless now. All that was left was to do her duty, to save as many of her people as she could in what little time they had left. Safiya stepped forward, taking her father’s hand and looking into his eyes, to help him do what needed to be done.

“We must negotiate a surrender,” she said, and her voice sounded very tired and old.

Huyayy blinked as the truth of her words began to sink in. But even as her father faced reality, her accursed husband fled into delusion.

“Surrender? And suffer the fate of Bani Qurayza? Never! We will defend our homes to the last man!”

“And I’m sure you will live long enough to be that last man, considering what a coward you are!”

Kinana’s face turned an ugly purple, but she ignored him, her eyes focused on her father.

“Let me go to the Muslims. I can speak with Muhammad. He will listen to me,” she said.

Huyayy stared at her in confusion. And then she described the dream she’d had, of the moon resting in her lap and bringing life again to the oasis.

“It is a sign from God. A portent.” She hesitated and then said the words that had been imprinted on her heart since the night of the strange vision. “It is my destiny.”

Huyayy looked at her with wide eyes. But before he could respond, Kinana grabbed her by the hair and slammed her face against the brutal stones of the parapet. Safiya cried out in agony and for a second the world spun around her as blood poured into her eyes.

“You treacherous whore!” he screeched like a vulture. “All of this time you lay in my bed, you have been dreaming of that desert snake! Go to him, then! You are no longer one of our people!”

As pain flooded her senses, Safiya felt Kinana grab her hand and push her down the stairs from the roof.

“Father!” she managed to cry out. “Please! Help me!”

But Huyayy simply stood there, looking alone and confused as the world he had fought so hard to create came crashing down all around him.

THE HEAVILY GUARDED DOORS of the council chamber were flung open for a brief instant and Safiya was thrown unceremoniously into the middle of the street, where the battle raged with fierce intensity. Swords clashed with terrifying brutality as Muslim men and their Jewish adversaries fought house to house, hand to hand, for control of the governing seat of the oasis.

Safiya screamed in horror as a turbaned horseman rode toward her, his sword glinting unnaturally bright as if it reflected a thousand suns. And then she recognized the legendary dual blade of Dhul Fiqar and knew that she was in the presence of the famed Ali, the legendary warrior who had single-handedly slain many of the Muslims’ most hated enemies. Her heart leaped into her throat as she wondered if her name was about to be added to that long and illustrious list of kills.

But the sword did not come down on her head. Instead, Ali lowered the blade and climbed down from his black stallion. He looked at her with no surprise, as if he had somehow expected her to be there, lying in the middle of a blood-soaked avenue as the Angel of Death claimed its victims all around her.