"I demand blood money," growled the chief of the Qurayza, Ka'b ibn al-Asad. "Your Muslim killed one of my finest, and I will not let this boy go unpunished."

        "The boy is of yours, not ours." Growled back Zaid ibn Haritha.

        I was on my knees in the mosque, at the feet of Muhammad, his senior advisors as well as the chief of the Qurayza. Dawood, Habib's father, was also present. Silent, sulking, clinging to the shadows.

        The rush of energy and fury that pushed me to the murder of my own cousin seemed a distant dream now. The experience was exhilarating. It felt like I was not in control of my own actions, not in control of my own body; but I did not regret a second of it.

        I smiled wryly, and almost toppled to the floor. The outburst had taken all the power out of me, leaving me drained and light-headed. I was covered in dried blood all the way down to the abdomen. My hair stuck to my temples.

        I was numb, virtually detached from reality. My stomach churned and my thoughts were muddled. Distorted. There was no sign of the beast that had reigned supreme over mind and body only minutes before.

       Only the emptiness. The numbness.

        The beast had sprung forth, vanquished the foe in a manner most savage, yet pleasant. Barbaric, yet satisfying. Now, the rage did not slink in the corner of my mind as was its habit. There was a vacancy. Its presence sorely missed. It evaporated in its entirety, leaving behind only graphic, lucid memory.

        Zaid and the Qurayza chieftain, the shaykh of my own tribe, ibn al-Asad, had dragged me to the mosque for Muhammad's verdict. Dawood had been summoned and informed of his son's demise. He stood in the corner of the room in his loose black rabbi silks. His sleek face betrayed no emotion, yet his eyes were venomous and hard, fixated on me. His hand was fidgeting at his side.

       "He is a Muslim!" exclaimed ibn al-Asad.

       "He was never a Muslim. No one knows this better than I," professed Zaid. "I have known this boy for many a year and I have been aware of the darkness within him since the very first day. He is no servant of Allah. He is the work of Shaytan, set loose upon us from the bowels of Hell to corrupt our faith."

       "You will pay me blood money for the man I lost," ibn al-Asad insisted.

       Sa'ad ibn Mu'adh, the chieftain of the Aws, stepped forward and growled.

       "Your boys besmirched the honor of my wife!" he roared. "I have ample right to demand my own justice."

       Wife? Had I been of a sound mind, perhaps I would have expressed befitting shock. Sumayya was his wife?

       Muhammad raised a hand, calling for silence.

       "I have heard you," he nodded at ibn al-Asad and Zaid. "But it is not yours to judge the fate of the boy."

         Vaguely aware of the on goings, I looked up at 'Umar, pleading.

         "I will vouch for the boy," Rasped 'Umar, without hesitation.

         Bilal paused before speaking.

         "His was always a troubled soul. I dare not accuse him of evil nor can I confirm he is not of the faith, but I cannot claim he is god-fearing, for this would be a lie. He is of the Qurayza and to the Qurayza he must return. That is my counsel."

        "So, you put up this farce to deny me the blood money that is my right?" demanded ibn al-Asad.

         "It seems as though you do not care for the life of your fallen man as much as you crave our coin." chimed in 'Ali ibn Abu Taleb.

         "Kill the boy," continued Zaid. "He is a danger to us all. You have not seen what he is capable of. Killing a man is bad enough, but none should die in such a manner."

         "Watch your tongue, ibn Haritha. You do not want to rouse my temper." 'Umar growled.

         "We can continue this bickering until the day of judgement, and we would be no closer to justice," Abu Bakr spoke for the first time. "This is a matter best delegated to the family of the deceased. What say you, Dawood ibn Lu'ay? Blood tithe or execution?"

        All the men in the mosque nodded at his level-headed approach.

        All eyes were on my uncle now, his face half-covered in shadows. His nostrils flared and he spoke. His voice seething with anger, his eyes never blinking nor shifting away from me all the while.

         "I would see him dead," he said tightly, his voice breaking. It sounded like even speech was too great an effort for him.

         "Then it is decided," Muhammad waved a finger. "I will hear no more of this. The father of the deceased will do as he pleases with the boy, and that is our justice."

         Ibn al-Asad opened his mouth to object, but he was put in his place with a look from Muhammad.

         I looked up at 'Umar again, expecting him to do something. Glare at all those present, perhaps, and shield me from hands that would do me harm. He would stand tall and defiant, resplendent in all his intimidating glory. Challenging any who dared to come forth and fight him first in order to collect me. To vanquish 'Umar? A task most impossible.

          But 'Umar did not meet my eyes. He did not hop in their way, clenching his fist, roaring. He did not so much as shift or move a muscle. Beneath a veneer of numbness and sluggishness, I felt betrayed.

         I felt a hatred kindling. Brewing. A feeling I knew all too well.

         "There will be no blood money from the ummah, ibn al-Asad," Muhammad continued. "He is a Qurayzi and he murdered a Qurayzi. This is your own tribal dispute. You will trouble me with it no longer. I have more urgent matters to attend to."

         The dismissal was clear, and so my uncle and ibn al-Asad dragged me out of the mosque, hauling me down to the lower city. To the life I had abandoned. To the cramped shack I resented so.

          I was still too dazed to react to my sentence. I felt vulnerable. Like a leaf fallen off the branch of a tree, I floated aimlessly, pushed this way and that by a turbulent breeze.

         I was, however, fully aware that I'd finally killed Habib. His death was as sweet as I always imagined, as I always fantasized it would be.

         I remembered the sheer shock on his face when I wrapped my legs around his waist and conjured a dagger from nowhere. How he jerked and twitched pathetically when first I stabbed him. His fruitless attempts at choking the life out of me, his grip on my throat only weakening until his lifeless hands lost their hold entirely.

         I let out a dry chuckle that only earned me a smack on the back of my neck by my uncle. He continued to drag me along by my collar.

        I wondered what had become of Sumayya.

        Sumayya, I remembered. I killed her father, Huyayy ibn al-Akhtab, the most prominent Banu Nadir chieftain. Her husband was Sa'ad ibn Mu'adh of the Aws – a man I affronted, a man I aggrieved deeply. He believed I besmirched her honor...

        Perhaps I did, I realized groggily. She was a woman married. If there was any rage left within me, it would doubtless have been stimulated. She lied to me. It served me right for ever believing she was interested in me.

        Why would anyone be interested in someone like me?

         I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b. Hanthalah ibn Ka'b, a failed merchant's son.

        Hanthalah ibn Ka'b who abandoned his own mother and the religion of his forebears.

         I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b who disregarded lineage and tribal affiliation in favor of the embrace of foreigners.

         I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b, a green boy untested in the ways of war and men, a boy responsible for the deaths of dozens in his weakness, in his cowardice.

         I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b, a boy who murdered his own flesh and blood for a lying woman. Cursed by the spirits of my ancestors.

         I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b. I did not belong. I was not of the Qurayza. I played the part of Muslim for nearly three years, but Zaid was not wrong; I was anything but. I was of a Jewish tribe, clinging to Arab gods. I was of a Jewish tribe yet felt no link with kin nor clansmen.

         I was Hanthalah ibn Ka'b. Weak and pitiful. Without identity. Without family. Without brethren. Forsaken by lover and 'Umar and the gods.

         Ibn al-Asad left us at the door of our shack. Dawood shoved me to my knees outside, and I was surprised to see tears brimming in his eyes. His teeth were set so hard I thought they would shatter. His eyes wide and full of such seething hatred, I thought they would set me alight. He shivered vigorously, his breathing ragged.

         "So, you really did it, huh?" A deep voice rumbled.

          I looked up to see that it was Ezra.

          He was leaning on the doorway, arms folded. His one eye gleaming and amused. His empty socket an abyss.

          "I always thought you a weakling. Effeminate. Perhaps you are fit to call yourself my brother after all."

         His hands resting on the hilt of a sword hanging on his hip, he walked up to my bony uncle. He was wearing a filthy, tattered leather jerkin above a tattered white gown. I wrinkled my nose as his usual aroma of leather, beer and piss washed over me. It was nauseating.

        "Never did like your boy, anyway," Ezra continued to address our uncle. He conjured a morsel of mutton and took a bite of it. "Touch my brother and you'll be short a head, old man."

        He patted Dawood on the shoulder amicably, continuing to take small bites of his mutton.

        Through the numbness, I was shocked to hear Ezra speak of me that way. I always assumed he would jump with joy at the thought of my sentence, perhaps eager to carry it out himself.

         Dawood's harsh gaze was set upon Ezra now, unblinking, eyes glimmering with tears he attempted to contain. He said nothing and Ezra only winked at him, his nonchalant behavior visibly infuriating Dawood further.

         Ezra waved at me as he swaggered back into the shack, whistling softly. I scurried quickly behind, eagerly accepting the unlikely succor. Perhaps I would live to fight another day.

        As soon as I stepped into the shack, I gaped at my reclining mother. I did not remember her face being so wrinkled nor her head so thick with grey. She was knitting goat hairs but as soon as I stepped inside, she raised her head and froze in stunned silence. Her eyes brimmed with tears and her mouth opened as if to speak, but I stifled whatever it was by bursting forward, diving into her arms.

       In her arms was truly the only place I felt safe. The entire tribe of Quraysh could burst into the city right now and I wouldn't so much as flinch. How could any man hurt me when I had my mother watching over me? I basked in her warmth, her easy matronly demeanor that was second hand to her. She caressed my head and traced fingers through my hair, sending prickles up my arms.

         It felt like I hadn't been gone a day. I sobbed into her chest, bawling unapologetically.

        The only thing souring the moment was that small voice in the back of my head. Taunting me, doubting me with barbed derision.

        Why would a woman so lovely ever care for a weakling like you? A disappointment and a failure. You of no identity, of no home. Of no people to call your own.

        But my mother's embrace was not my only source of solace.

        That night, in the hour of the wolf, when all the world was asleep, I prowled the shack's main chamber, stepping over huddled, slumbering bodies. It was then that I came in contact with it.

         I had seen it many a time, slung over Habib's back or otherwise in his fingers. I always admired from afar, regarding its sleek figure, its polished oak and robust string with mute approval.

         Now, Habib's bow lay there ripe for the picking. I propped it up, basking in the smoothness of its remarkably cultivated wood. The oak was dark, almost of a black, spotless sheen. The weapon itself was a double-curved monstrosity, yet light of feel. There were stories of the horsemen to the east wielding such fine contraptions, the Turkic nomads who were human from the belly up but had the hindquarters of a steed.

          I cradled my bow in my arms as a mother would her child.

         My first spoil of war. I killed a man for it.

         The one thing that would stay true to me. Unconditionally.

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