The boys mourned long. They mourned both Eve's loss and their distrust of her. But misery must give way to survival, and though they wept, they walked and hunted and, above all, lived.

Cain's sixteenth birthday came and passed. He knew what to expect, and after all, there was no one but Abel to judge him, and Abel was the same as he. And the change made things easier, really, for they could hunt together and move more swiftly than any mortal man.

Time passed. So much time. The boys never aged, never changed. Abel sometimes had visions, vague, dreamlike things that he didn't understand. He saw the black bird that had haunted Eve, but if Cain saw anything, he never said so.

Years upon years, endless cycles of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They wandered, always with some vague idea of finding Eden, if they wandered long enough; always with no real hope they would.

And always, the looked for Eden.

"I figure we'll see everywhere, eventually," Cain said. And they fell into silence, as they often did for weeks or even months, forgetting time and being forgotten by it. They crossed a great body of water, swimming across with preternatural strength to the land that men call Scotia and traveled on.

Abel dreamed about birds, black birds that targeted him and swooped in front of him. The force of their wings beating the air lifted up her hair so that it danced in the wind. Abel reached out his hand, and a baby bird landed on his finger, leaning forward and back as it tested out the balance it needed to stay upright. The bird opened its mouth and-

A chilling human scream pierced his dream.

Abel sat bolt upright. A human scream? It wasn't possible. The humans were all dead. He lay back down on her back and looked up at the sky.

Another scream tore through the forest. For a moment, Abel felt lightheaded. The shrieking had an odd effect on his blood, and for the first time, Abel knew what people meant when they said blood-chilling. He looked over at Cain, but Cain slept like the dead, and made no reaction to the sound. Just then another cry reached Abel. It sounded like it was far off, deep within the woods. A bird?

No. It had to be human.

Abel left the camp, slipping through the shadows as yet another shadow, impossibly light and quick. The sun was up but pale and wavering. It would not bother him.

The screaming resumed. Nearly there.

There! He ducked partly behind a tree and waited, watching with the endless patience of a predator.

A tall woman wearing a thin white dress stumbled through the trees. She was sobbing, her beautiful face contorted with despair. Tears shone against the light coming from the stars above. Her hair was long and blond, and it spilled over her breasts and reached down to her stomach, vibrant against the moody darkness that hugged her surroundings. At times the mist seeping out of the ground obscured her face, pale though it was. She was shivering violently, and Abel could hear her jaw slamming up and down as her teeth chattered.

As far as Abel could tell, the woman was alone. She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, even more beautiful than Eve. Curious, his heart aching to discover what was wrong with this young woman, Abel slowly stepped into view.

Immediately, the woman froze. Her fear was palpable, but her furrowed brow and desperate eyes conveyed an anger, suspicion, and defensiveness that made Abel wary.

"Who's there?" the woman demanded. Her petite hands curled into fists.

"Hello," Abel said, clearing his throat. It had been so very, very long since he'd spoken to a human being.

"Who are you?" the woman cried. She stepped back and nearly tripped over a large tree root sticking out of the ground. Her feet were bare and, now that she was closer, he could see that her dress was streaked with red stripes.

Sensitive this smell above all smells, Abel detected the rust-like, primal scent of human blood. "Why were you crying?" he asked.

"Stay away from me! I know what you are. You're one of them!"

Though he was confused, Abel stayed calm and tried not to betray his insecurities. She was so very beautiful. "Are you hurt? Can I help?" he asked, trying to keep his voice soft and sympathetic.

The woman opened her mouth then closed it. A slight wave of acceptance and longing passed over her small features.

"Who. Are. You?" she said once again through gritted teeth.

Abel was quiet a long moment. "My name is Adam. I am traveler. I heard you screaming from across the forest. I can try to help you. I did not realize that there was anyone left."

"Left?" the woman asked. A puzzled look crossed her face. "What are you talking about? Left from what?"

"Left alive," Abel said. "After the long ice."

She laughed. "The what?"

Abel shook his head. He had forgotten how short the lives and memories of human beings were. Part of him had noticed the ice melting, of course. The sea had turned from ice to water, the sky dropped rain instead of ice, and the white land was green and brown. Sometimes, there were flowers. The first time he and Cain had seen a flower after the ice, they had stood and stared and stared at it, until Cain had finally said, "Flower."

"What?" Abel had asked.

"That's called a flower. Abel, I think the ice is really gone. Eve did manage to kill Amos. There's nothing left for us but to find Eden, if there's even any point in that."

Abel had nodded. "Yes," he had said grimly. "I think we must find Eden."

Abel tore himself from his memories, blinking rapidly at the girl in front of him. He rewound his memory and did his best to reformulate his question into one the woman would understand. "I meant, where are you from? How did you get here?"

The woman looked like she was at her breaking point. "I woke up in a cave. My village abandoned me, they said-

"It doesn't matter what they said. They killed my father, mother, and brother, but they didn't dare kill me. But they drugged me with something that made my bones ache. My entire face hurt, and when I opened my eyes I could not feel my fingers or toes." The woman spoke slowly, as if she could not quite believe what she was saying herself.

"What happened? Why did your village turn on you?"

The woman shook her head vigorously. "I'm not going to tell you that."

"Then at least tell me your name," Abel said gently, trying not to scare her off. "My name is Abel. I mean you no harm."

"My name is Ruth," the woman said, stumbling over her words. "I'm just a wench from a village in the middle of the mountains. Or at least I was. I'm no one important."

"You've had a shock," Abel mused. It was something Eve might have said, long ago.

Ruth narrowed her eyes. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?" she said. "Get out! Get away from me! I don't need you."

"Are you sure of that? Out here, all alone with nobody around you? It's only a matter of time before the ice reaches this far. Humanity is wiped out, or most of it is. You can join my brother and me. We would welcome your company." Welcome it? Hah. They starved for it.

A long moment passed as Ruth looked him over, judging his trustworthiness. Finally, Abel started to see something change in Ruth's features. She relaxed, the tension in her neck and forehead drifting away until her face looked comfortable and, yes, hopeful. She reached out and took Abel's hand. Though Ruth was shaking with cold, she felt wonderfully, gloriously, humanly warm to Abel.

"I will come with you, Abel," the woman whispered. "I will travel with you and with your brother. I trust you."

Cain and Abel had expressed a similar sentiment, when Eve had first taken them in. How strange, he thought, the way events repeat themselves. But then, he'd long become accustomed to the cycles of time.

"Come on," he said. "Let's walk back to camp."

As Ruth and Abel returned to the campsite, Cain stirred. He sat suddenly up and looked across the clearing directly at Abel and Eve. He flowed to his feet, his vampiric grace the product of centuries and always present despite his awkward feelings. His face turned scarlet, and he wiped his hands on his thighs and then ran his left hand through his shaggy hair.

"This is my brother, Cain," Abel said when they were close enough to hear each other. "Cain, this is Ruth. Her village abandoned her, so she'll be traveling with us from now on."

Cain gabbled a greeting and kept staring. Ruth stared back.

"Would you like some food, Ruth?" Abel asked. "I can hunt. I'm afraid we don't have anything else." Humans ate things other than meat, didn't they? It had been so long . . .

"It's okay. Thank you, Abel. I'm very hungry. I haven't eaten days, I guess," Ruth said, one corner of her mouth turning up in a weak and bitter smile. "Thank you for all your kindness."

Abel didn't know how to reply, so he disappeared back into the woods without saying anything at all.

***

There was no keeping their vampirism a secret from Ruth, although at first the brothers tried. But they had too long lost touch with humanity to know what was needed. They forgot they needed to pretend to eat; they sometimes forgot to talk; they always forgot to adjust their movements, which were always too fast and too smooth, even when they were walking at Ruth's pace instead of the half-meander, half-blur in which they had spent so many centuries.

"I know what you are," Ruth said one right. They were sitting around a fire, a luxury constructed solely for her benefit, and she had just finished eating. "Your kind is among the legends of my tribe. You are creatures of the Lord of Death, bound to eternal night and the drinking of blood."

"We can go out in the daytime," Abel objected uncomfortably. "You've seen us."

"Yes," she acknowledged, "but you move more slowly then, more weakly. And you do, I think, avoid standing too long beneath direct or bright sunlight."

The brothers looked at her uncertainly, and it was Cain who got up the courage to say, "You don't seem afraid of us, though. Shouldn't you be afraid?"

She laughed, a silvery laugh like the whisper of summer leaves in a light breeze. "You have been nothing but kind to me. Why should I be afraid, just because you aren't what you pretended to be?"

The brothers remember their reaction to Eve, and did not answer.

"Besides," she went on cheerily, warming her hands by the fire, "I like you. And I'm curious. What's it like, being a vampire?"

***

Things seemed easier after that, and although Abel had trouble with long conversations, Cain fell easily back into the habit he had lost for nearly a millennium. He stayed ever by Ruth's side, chatting with her, taking every opportunity to touch her cascade of yellow hair or the smooth skin of her hand. He showed her what they had learned about the world in their time of wandering, and she told him about modern people: their culture, language, and technology.

"Isn't it strange," she commented one day, "that we understand each other? If you're as old as you say, I'd have thought our language would have changed totally."

Abel, stalking nearby, scoffed. "It has," he said. "You think that matters to us? Our minds might not have the power of dragons, but they are far greater than yours. You aren't speaking our language; we're speaking yours. You taught it to us, the moment you were nearby."

Ruth looked uneasily from one brother to another. "You can read my mind?"

Cain shot a warning glance at his brother. "No," he said emphatically. "It's not like that. We can just . . . we can just understand you and respond in a way you can understand."

"But how?"

"We don't know," Abel said shortly. "We're the only vampires there are. Who do you think could explain these things to us? But we're speaking the same language, and it's not the same language as my brother and I spoke before. That should be enough for you."

It was not enough for Ruth, but she didn't care to hazard Abel's sharp temper anymore. So she turned back to Cain, who pressed her hand and smiled sweetly at her.