Chapter I: The Widow’s Prayer and the Omens of Fate
Once, in a valley forgotten by maps, nestled between the craggy "Mountain of the Tribes" and the shifting sands of the Great East, lived a woman named Aisha. Her life was a tapestry of toil and devotion. She lived with her husband, a humble farmer whose hands were as calloused as the earth he tilled. Though they were poor in coin, they were rich in lineage, for Aisha had borne seven sons—strong, spirited boys who grew like sturdy oaks.
Yet, Aisha’s heart harbored a persistent ache. She yearned for a daughter, a spark of grace to balance the thunder of her sons, a companion to share the secrets of the hearth and tend to her in the winter of her life. Year after year, she prayed under the silver moon, "O Creator, grant me a girl whose beauty rivals the dawn, to be the light of my old age."
Tragedy, however, struck before the prayer was answered. Her husband fell to a mysterious wasting sickness, leaving Aisha a widow. Just as despair threatened to swallow her, she discovered life stirring within her womb once more. A flicker of hope ignited. She made a solemn vow: "If the Heavens grant me a daughter, I shall cook a feast so vast that no beggar in the village shall go hungry for a week."
Her seven sons, now young men, watched their mother with a mix of anticipation and arrogance. They gathered one evening by the fire and declared their terms. "Mother," the eldest spoke, his voice booming, "if this child is a girl, we shall be her protectors. We will drape her in silk and grant her every whim. But if it is an eighth son—another mouth to feed, another voice to argue over the inheritance—we shall leave this house forever. We will not dwell where peace is smothered by a crowd of brothers."
The day of labor arrived, heavy with the scent of jasmine and rain. Aisha, fearing her sons’ departure, devised a signal. She told them, "Wait in the fields. If my servant waves a white silken scarf, it is a girl, and you shall return to a sister’s embrace. But if she waves a heavy iron sickle, it is a boy, and you may seek your fortunes elsewhere."
Chapter II: The Great Betrayal and the Silent House
Deep within the manor, a miracle unfolded. Aisha gave birth to a girl so radiant that even the midwife gasped. They named her Wad’a, meaning "Gentle Grace." Her eyes were the color of moss after a storm, and her skin was as pale as milk.
However, darkness lurked in the heart of the household slave, a man of bitter ambition named Zaid, and his wife, the maidservant. They saw in this birth a chance to seize the farm. "If the brothers stay," Zaid whispered to his wife, "we remain slaves forever. If they leave, the farm falls to a weak widow and a babe. We can hoard the harvests and buy our freedom."
As the maidservant stood on the balcony, Wad’a’s cry echoing behind her, she reached for the white scarf. But Zaid stayed her hand, forcing the iron sickle into the air.
From the fields, the seven brothers saw the glint of cold iron. Their hearts hardened. Without a word, they packed their bags, mounted their horses, and rode toward the northern horizon, disappearing into the mists of the Great Forest. Aisha watched from her window, her joy at her daughter’s birth strangled by the sight of her sons’ silhouettes fading into the distance.
Wad’a grew up in a house of shadows. Every night, as Aisha combed her daughter’s golden tresses, she sang a haunting melody: "O Wad’a, the house is dark, saved by a single candle's spark, Seven knights on seven steeds, vanished like the mountain seeds. They left a tear, they left a void, by a cruel omen quite destroyed."
Chapter III: The Quest and the Waters of Deception
At eighteen, Wad’a could no longer bear the mystery. She pressed her mother until Aisha, weeping, revealed the truth of the sickle and the lost brothers.
"I will find them, Mother," Wad’a declared, her eyes flashing with the fire of her lineage. "I will bring the seven pillars of this house back to their foundation."
Aisha gave her daughter three things: a sturdy horse, the companionship of the slave and the maid (whom she still trusted), and her father’s Ancient Sickle. "This is no ordinary tool, my child. It is an heirloom of the Old Kings. Place it on the earth, and it will point toward your kin. Your brothers always favored the North, where the Great Market lies."
They set out at dawn. But Zaid, the slave, was not finished with his treachery. One night, while Wad’a slept, he stole the magical sickle and replaced it with a rusted imitation. The next morning, when Wad’a consulted the tool, it pointed stubbornly East—toward the Forest of No Return.
After days of travel, they reached two shimmering springs. A sign read: "The Spring of the Nobles" and "The Spring of the Servants." While Wad’a prepared to bathe, Zaid swapped the signs. He and his wife plunged into the Spring of the Nobles. In a flash of magical light, their skin became fair, their hair turned gold, and they radiated an aura of authority. When Wad’a stepped into the other spring, she felt a burning sensation. She emerged with skin as dark as midnight and features coarsened by a magical hex.
"Look at you," Zaid sneered, his voice now refined and haughty. "A common drudge. From now on, I am the Master, and you are the slave. Mention your name, and I will slit your throat."
Chapter IV: The Seven Hunters and the Hidden Truth
They wandered until they encountered seven hunters carrying a massive stag. These were the brothers, though they had grown rugged and wealthy in their exile. Seeing the transformed Zaid and his wife, the brothers mistook them for displaced royalty and invited them to their grand forest estate—a palace of seven wings.
Wad’a was relegated to the kitchens. She spent her days cleaning gore from the hunt and eating scraps. But every afternoon, she would sit under a giant oak tree and sing. Her voice remained unchanged—a crystalline stream of pure sorrow.
The youngest brother, Khalid, possessed a cat he loved dearly. He noticed the cat would vanish every day after the noon meal. Curious, he followed the feline and found it curled in the lap of the "dark-skinned slave girl."
He hid behind the trunk as Wad’a sang: "I am the daughter of the Mountain Queen, once fair, now unseen. The sickle lied, the slave conspired, and my brothers' love has since expired."
Khalid’s heart hammered. He approached her. "Who are you, girl of the sorrowful song?"
Wad’a, seeing the kindness in his eyes—eyes that mirrored her mother’s—spoke the truth. She told him of the springs, the sickle, and the treachery of Zaid. Khalid, though stunned, knew the cunning of the "Noble" guest. "I will help you," he whispered. "But we must be careful. Zaid has poisoned my brothers' ears with lies of his great wealth."
Chapter V: The Trial of the Shattered Jar
The next day, Khalid staged a ruse. He gathered his brothers and the guests in the great hall. "Today," Khalid announced, "I will show you our greatest treasure—a jar of rubies found in the deep woods."
He had secretly greased the floor with jasmine oil. As the eldest brother entered carrying a ceramic jar (actually filled with colored glass), he slipped. The jar shattered, and "gems" scattered everywhere.
Zaid and his wife immediately scrambled onto their knees, greedily snatching the glass, cursing the brother for his clumsiness. But Wad’a rushed forward, ignoring the "jewels," and knelt by her brother. "Are you hurt, my blood, my brother?" she cried, her voice cracking with genuine fear.
The brothers froze. They looked at the "Noble" guests, who were shoving glass into their pockets, and then at the servant girl, who was tending to their brother’s bruised knee with a cool cloth.
"Wait," the eldest said, his eyes narrowing. "Why does a slave call us 'brother'?"
Khalid stepped forward and revealed the stolen magical sickle from Zaid’s pack. "Behold the mark of our father!"
Caught, Zaid tried to flee, but the brothers surrounded him. They forced him to lead them back to the twin springs. When Wad’a bathed in the Spring of the Nobles, the hex vanished. She emerged in her true form—a maiden of such blinding beauty that her brothers fell to their knees in shame and joy. They cast Zaid and his wife into the Spring of the Servants, where their skin turned as dark as their deeds, and they were banished into the wastes.
Chapter VI: The Jealousy of Wives and the Serpent’s Egg
The brothers brought Wad’a back to their palace, treating her like a goddess. But where there is light, shadows follow. The seven brothers had married women from the surrounding tribes—women who grew venomous with jealousy at the attention Wad’a received.
"She will inherit our husbands' wealth," the wives whispered. They sought a mountain witch who gave them a Serpent’s Egg—the egg of the Great Winged Drake.
While the brothers were away on their annual Great Hunt, the wives prepared a feast. "It is our tradition," the eldest wife lied, "for the lady of the house to swallow this 'Honeyed Pearl' to bring luck to the hunters."
Wad’a, suspecting no evil from her sisters-in-law, swallowed the egg. Within weeks, she grew pale. Her stomach distended, and she felt a horrific writhing within her. The wives began a campaign of slander. "Look at her!" they told the returning brothers. "She has been unfaithful while you were away. She carries a monster."
Even the brothers’ hearts were swayed by the sight of their sister’s condition. Only Khalid defended her, but he was overruled. To avoid the shame of execution, they gave Wad’a a bag of water and bread and exiled her into the wilderness, warning her never to return.
Chapter VII: The Alchemist and the Birth of the Drake
Wad’a wandered until she reached the isolated farm of Ibn Abd al-Barr, a disgraced court sorcerer and astronomer. He was a man who spoke to the stars and the wild hares of the woods.
Finding her collapsed in his barn, he recognized the symptoms immediately. "You do not carry a child of man," he said, his voice grave. "You have swallowed the egg of the Grey Drake."
Using a concoction of bitter colocynth and ancient incantations, he induced a violent purge. From Wad’a’s throat slid a small, grey, leathery serpent. But instead of killing it, Wad’a felt a strange kinship with the creature. "It suffered as I suffered," she said.
The serpent grew at an impossible rate, fueled by the sorcerer's magic, until it became a Dragon of silver scales, loyal only to Wad’a.
One day, while Wad’a bathed, the sorcerer saw a birthmark on her shoulder—a golden seal in the shape of a crown. He gasped. "This is the Seal of the Lost City of Iram! You are not merely a farmer’s daughter; you are the descendant of the King who fled the Great Plague!"
Chapter VIII: The Lost City and the Final Battle
The sorcerer revealed that the Ancient Sickle Wad’a carried was the key to the underground vaults of the Lost City, located to the North. Together with the Dragon, they traveled to the ruins, now overgrown by a thousand years of jungle.
The Sickle glowed as they approached the throne room. Using a drop of her royal blood, Wad’a opened the Great Seal. Inside lay mountains of gold and the "Scrolls of the First Age."
But the sorcerer, driven mad by greed, tried to trap Wad’a in the vault to claim the gold for himself. He didn't count on the hares—who were actually the enchanted children of a neighboring Sultan, transformed by the sorcerer years ago. They showed Wad’a a secret passage, and she trapped the sorcerer within his own greed.
Wad’a, now restored to her true heritage as the Queen of the Emerald Crown, summoned her brothers. When they saw her arriving atop a silver dragon, flanked by a resurrected army of the Lost City, they fell prostrate.
She revealed the treachery of their wives. In a trial by fire, the guilty wives were exposed and vanished into ash, while the brothers begged for a forgiveness that Wad’a, in her infinite grace, granted—on the condition that they serve as the Seven Generals of her new kingdom.
The news of the Golden Queen spread. The neighboring Sultan, whose children Wad’a had saved from their animal forms, proposed a grand alliance. Wad’a married the Sultan’s son, merging the two greatest empires of the East.
The village of her birth was transformed into a paradise, and Aisha, the old widow, lived to see her daughter sit upon a throne of jade, her seven sons standing as the unbreakable pillars of the realm. The sickle, once a sign of departure, remained on the altar of the palace—a reminder that fate may bend, but the blood of the righteous never breaks.
Keywords: Arabic Folklore, Fantasy Epic, Dragons, Lost City, Seven Brothers, Magic Sickle, Treachery, Royal Heritage, Sorcery, Transformation, Justice, Emerald Crown, Ancient Myths.
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