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.
They were small, frail creatures, the humans, Eve always thought. But dragons, for all their magical powers, couldn't compare to humans' will to survive.
Cain and Abel wore the skins of their kills, careful tanned under Eve's watchful eye-though she knew very little about the process, truth be told. She had learned from them as much as they had learned from her since she had taken guardianship of them.
"Fresh tracks, Eve!" Cain excitedly said as he outran Abel towards Eve. Even for ten summers, he was small-spindly, even. Both the boys were too thin; animals to hunt were getting more and more scarce as the ice crept closer. Nor was there much to gather any more, as the cold forced the plants into dormancy. She had, on occasion, used her power to force one of the hardier plants to bear fruit so the children would not starve, but she hated to do it. The plants needed everything they had to survive this long winter.
"It must be another tribe, making its way to the other side of the world," Abel thoughtfully added.
Cain was Abel's younger brother, but they had been born so close together that most people mistook them for twins. While Cain was always bursting with energy, Abel was reserved and thoughtful. From her observations, Eve thought he was quite mature for his age. It made sense, she supposed. Unlike the dragons in Eden, who spent nearly their entire first century as children, the harsh world of the humans forced them to grow up quickly. In a few years, Abel would have been considered an adult by his tribe, and a few years beyond that, he would have been expected to take a wife and begin rearing young of his own.
"Well done, Cain, Abel," Eve replied, drawing the boys closer, embracing them like an affectionate mother. Eve was drawn to their warmth, surprised that such small, frail bodies could feel so warm.
Then Eve noticed a scratch on Abel's arm, the scent of blood teasing her, bringing her into alert mode. "What happened to your arm, Abel?" Eve asked, her voice laced with worry.
Abel looked stricken; he had been hoping Eve wouldn't notice. He looked flustered, fumbled for an answer, but before he could find a satisfactory explanation, Cain stepped forward and told the truth.
"It was my fault, Eve," Cain said remorsefully, his eyes fixed to the ground, scared out of his wits to say something Eve might hate him for forever. "We saw a dragon while we were following the tracks, and I chased it. The dragon was aiming for me, I think, but Abel pushed me away. We both fell, and Abel fell on a sharp rock."
Eve was mortified, but her smooth, placid face registered none of the turmoil inside. "Cain, why did you chase the dragon?" she asked, almost certain the children were talking about Amos.
"The dragons killed our parents," Cain replied reluctantly, knowing Eve would not settle for less than the real reason.
"Cain, you know that's not true," Abel said. "Our parents left because they protected the dragons. We don't know they're dead at all. The tribe thought the dragons, with their magic and intelligence, would be a threat to our kind and hunted them down. Our parents-"
Eve, a dragon most anchored in reality, thought for the first time of destiny. Standing before her were Jaco and Iris's children. She knew the boys' parentage with absolute certainty because during the rise of humans against dragons, only two people had stood between an outbreak of war: Jaco and Iris. And I shall repay you by protecting your children as you protected me and my kind, Eve vowed solemnly as she regarded the children.
"Well then," Eve said as she walked to the foot of a tree, gathering medicinal leaves, "let's get that cleaned up so we can follow the trail."
Eve cleaned Abel's wound with the sap from the leaves of a nearby tree and water from a brook. She had to trickle a thread of power into the leaves, awakening their potent medicinal properties. Luckily, they were far enough away from Amos that the edge of the ice wasn't upon them yet. Just the bitter cold winds that blew off it. Once the paste was packed onto the scratch, she let Cain lead them to where he had found the tracks. They'd been following the trail for nearly an hour when Eve thought of something.
"Abel, how did you get away from the dragon?" Eve asked curiously.
Cain suddenly blushed.
"The dragon was circling back, but Cain hit the dragon's right eye with his sling," Abel replied, smiling proudly at the thought while Cain continued to blush scarlet. The younger boy mumbled something unintelligible, but he touched the long piece of leather tucked through the thong around his waist. A pouch of stones hung next to it, and she knew he had good aim. More than once, it had been only Cain's quick reactions and excellent aim that had kept the boys from going hungry. A squirrel wasn't much of a meal, but it was something.
Serves you right, Amos, Eve thought mischievously, for underestimating these children. She laughed. "That was very brave of you, Cain," she said affectionately, ruffling Cain's shock of brown hair.
"It was nothing!" Cain insisted.
"You saved me, Cain," Abel said as he smiled at his younger brother. "It was my duty to protect you, and I would do so even if it means losing my life. But you're not under such obligation, and yet you didn't run. That was brave."
"Yeah, whatever," Cain replied noncommittally. Then he shoved Abel's shoulder and stuck out his tongue at him. "And of course I have to protect you too! You're still my brother, even if you are older."
They took shelter after crossing a river, and the night crept by in silence. Eve sat sentry, watching the boys with fresh eyes. Whatever happens, Eve swore, your children, my children, will survive. A pang of sorrow that nearly doubled her over with grief she had tried so hard to bury. Eve had never borne a child with her own body. She, a dragon of life, could not bring life into this world.
Slowly, Eve drifted off to sleep, the heat from Cain and Abel's warm bodies throwing off her senses so that she did not notice when the fog thickened, the stars were obscured from the sky, and, faster than ever, Amos's curse devoured the land they'd just covered, stopping short of their feet.
When Eve woke up, stretched over her head, glittering with cold beauty. She stretched out a hand and gently swiped her fingers across the ice, only to jerk them back quickly from the biting cold.
"What's that?" Abel asked, roused from sleep when Eve moved her arms from around the boys. He stared at the towering ice, but Cain simply rolled over beneath the pile of leaves that had formed their blanket.
"It's dragon magic," Eve replied, suddenly feeling trapped. She pushed herself. Even in their skins, the two boys shivered.
Abel stood and joined her. "Why do the dragons hate us, Eve?" Abel asked sadly, kneeling to lay a frozen flower to rest. His fingers scraped up a little of the loose dirt to cover it.
"The dragons are dead, Abel," Eve replied, the lie reverberating in her ears. "All of them except Amos."