Genesis (Cain and Abel #1)

Chapter One

The sound of ice creeping over the known world . . . encasing it in a permanent state of suspension . . . paralyzing all life . . .

It did not immediately convey the horror of things to come, Eve thought. It was too slow, too gradual. You seemed to have almost too much time to check off a list of necessities for life after the ice came. She knew the ice would not kill her: fire coursed through her blood, and her strength would carry her like a beacon in the long days, years, eras that were to come. That was part of what it meant to be a fire dragon.

Beside her, Amos shifted his feet, his talons clacking against the jagged cliff. How old was that cliff, was the stone upon which they sat? How long would it remain? Would it still be here, untouched and unweathered, long after they were gone?

Long after all dragons were gone?

Eve winced at the pain behind that depressing truth. There were only two dragons left in the world, and Amos, her oldest friend, was now her bitter enemy. Soon there would be no dragons left, and their legacy would be ground to dust beneath the endless wheel of time.

Eve lifted her eyes to regard the dragon beside her. Once powerful and full of life, the gray-blue ice dragon was now a shadow of despair. "You don't have to do this, Amos," she said quietly.

Amos let out a strangled laugh. "Oh, Eve. I wish I didn't. But you know how it is. Ice dragons are evil outcasts, not meant to play nice with the other little boys and girls."

Eve shook her head. "The hatred within your heart . . . it doesn't have to be there. I know you were hurt when Lilith-"

"Silence!" Amos shouted, his fury erupting in a roar, only to degrade almost immediately into the hacking cough that had been hounding him for months. "You know nothing of hatred, Eve," he went on, when the fit had subsided. His long, sinewy neck curved away from her, hiding his face. "You know nothing of love."

Eve unconsciously flexed her claws and rolled her eyes; Amos was always so dramatic. It was Amos who knew nothing of her-of the love she'd experienced once, the love that had been stolen from her. How could he? He had always been full of jealousy; had always been on the outside looking in. He thought he was strong, but she could kill him right now, she thought. Should kill him for that injustice, for defaming the memory of her beloved.

She was perhaps the only one alive who could kill Amos at all, although she knew she wouldn't. Not now. For the sake of their once-friendship, not now.

"I just want you to think carefully about what you're doing," Eve said, trying her best to keep her voice steady. "You know you have the power to end everything here on this planet. You've already started."

"And I intend to finish," he spat.

"Is there nothing you still fear?" she asked quietly. "Nothing you still love?"

Amos said nothing for a long time. At last, without looking at her, he spread his wings and leapt from the cliff. As he left her, he hissed a single word, one almost too low to hear:

"Eden."

Then flapped his enormous wings harder, and flew off toward the horizon.

"Farewell, Amos," she murmured. But it was not the farewell it sounded: it was a farewell not to the dragon but to their friendship. She knew she would see Amos again, before the end.

Eden. She turned the word over in her mind and felt the gears start to rotate. She knew Eden. She'd grown up there, as had Amos.

Eve closed her eyes and tried to picture it in her mind, but before she could come up with anything substantial, she heard two voices calling her name. Her young charges, her young human charges, were coming over the hill. With a flash of will and old dragon magic, she transformed herself into her human form-eyes as green as emeralds, skin as pale as moonlight, and hair the deep, luscious red of dragon blood. She made herself beautiful, her curvy, alabaster form pleasing to human men, although her little boys never seemed to notice.