For an eternity, there was only the pain. It was awesome pain, flaming hot and brutal, but it was also distant, as if she could not comprehend such pain up close. And worse, there were places without pain, without any sensation. Places that were already dead.

Ruth opened her eyes, but there was only darkness. She had not expected her sight to survive. Hadn't expected anything to survive. But the cover the undergrowth had provided had granted her this-this painful, lingering death.

There was no doubt at all in Ruth's mind that she was going to die, and no doubt that it was her fault. She should have gotten further from the fight, not just to the other side of the rill. She should have heeded the guardian's warning and never entered Eden. A fight between vampires and dragon was no place for a human woman.

Ruth lay with her eyes open, blind, waiting to die. And then her ears caught a murmur of movement nearby and a choked, grating voice that spoke to her.

"Ruth?"

Her name. Why was that her name? Did it matter? No. Nothing mattered anymore.

"Ruth, Ruth, please answer me. Ruth, are you alive? Ruth, please tell me you're alive."

She knew that voice. She knew it wouldn't leave her in peace until she answered back. "Abel?" she whispered back.

"No, no, it's Cain. Ruth, oh, Ruth!"

There was a strange sound, and Ruth realized he was crying. How strange that someone should cry over her. She wondered if he could see her, and what she looked like. Her fingers ran over the grass, or that was what she thought she made them do; there was no sensation left in them, no nerves to convey pleasure or pain. She thought of the burn victims she had seen, of the corpses she had watched upon their pyres. She thought of the way their skin had melted and flowed like wax, how horrifying they were to look upon. She wondered if she looked like that. She wondered if Cain would have recognized her, if he hadn't known this body must be hers.

This body. This pregnant body.

Something awakened deep within her, and she reached out, as if to clutch Cain, although there was no way for her to know if she succeeded. "My baby," she whispered. "My baby, my baby!"

"Yes, Ruth," Cain said, "I know. Shh, shh."

"You have to save my baby!" Ruth insisted. "Cain, Cain, you have to save my baby!"

"Shh, Ruth, stay calm. It's all right," Cain soothed, although he did not sound as if he believed it. "It's going to be all right."

"You're not listening to me!" Ruth cried-and tears would have run down her face, if her eyes could make any. "You have to save the baby. You have to take it. Cain, you have to cut the baby out of me. Take my knife. Take it." Her hand swept back and forth, trying to find the knife. "Where is it? Where's my knife?"

"It's here, Ruth," Cain said. "I have it. It's all right. Stay with me, Ruth."

"Save my baby! Save it!"

Cain looked at the knife in his hands. He was shaking. He had been burnt almost as badly as Ruth, and only his incredible regenerative properties and the nearness of the rill had saved him from her fate. "I don't know what to do," he said helplessly.

Ruth burst into dry sobs, her body heaving, flakes of skin sliding onto the grass with every movement.

"Stop, stop!" Cain cried. "I'll do it. I'll try. I'll-I'll try not to hurt you."

He didn't think there was any way he could hurt her more badly than she already was, but he was terrified as he held the knife, terrified as he brought it down firmly but carefully where he thought the right place was, terrified as he cut.

"Do you have it?" Ruth asked at last. "Do you have my baby? Is it all right? Tell me it's all right!" When Cain didn't answer, her face fell, and her voice became a monotone. "It's not all right, is it."

"I'm sorry," Cain whispered. He knelt back in the grass, holding the dead baby, his dead niece, who had been dead before Cain had begun cutting. "I'm so sorry, Ruth."

Ruth did not answer. Her blind eyes were closed again. Cain could hear her heart weakening as she gave up, as she released her final reason to live. Without thought, in a sudden flurry of movement, Cain dropped the baby and used the bloody knife to slice his own wrist open. He held his wrist over the gash in her womb, squeezing it, mixing his blood with hers. Then he held the flaps of her skin closed, leaning over her, whispering to her desperately to live, live.

It was the feeling of being watched that made Cain look up again. There was Abel, standing tall and silent on the grass, filthy and exhausted but completely unharmed, just looking at them. He looked at his daughter's corpse laying on the ground: neglected, torn prematurely from her mother's womb. He looked at the woman he loved lying burned on the grass, her features unrecognizable. He looked at his brother, the powerful warrior with the flaming sword, who had been meant to save and protect them both.

"Abel . . ." Cain began, holding out a hand to his brother. "Abel, I couldn't-I had to-"

Abel knelt by his daughter's body. He reached out a hand but stopped short, not touching, never touching. "Why didn't you protect them?" His voice was a rasp. He raised his eyes to his brother's face, horribly burnt but nothing, nothing compared to the face of his beloved. "Why didn't you save them?"

"Abel-I-I-"

"And why," Abel finished, touching the knife on the grass, Ruth's knife, "if you couldn't save them, didn't you let them die with dignity?"

"Abel, please, listen to me. Ruth-I tried to turn her. She's still alive. Listen to her, her heart-"

But the only heartbeat Abel could hear was his own, pounding in his ears like the beat of a thousand drums. "Leave here," he said hoarsely. "Leave and never come back. If I ever see you again, I'll kill you. Leave me to bury my family in peace."

"You can't bury Ruth," Cain said wretchedly. "Abel, you have to listen-"

But Abel had no intention of listening, no mind to listen with, so full were his thoughts with the pounding of his heart. He struck his brother full across the face with the back of his hand, and Cain fell to the grass beside Ruth.

Cain sobbed, "Listen, listen," reaching for Ruth.

Abel's fury flared to life. "Don't you dare touch her." He lunged for his brother, who recoiled in astonishment, and a moment later the two of them were rolling in the grass, scratching and punching each other-Abel trying to strangle his brother; Cain trying to throw Abel off, each screaming incoherently at the other. They rolled down into the rill. Cain managed to get on top of his brother, bracing his legs on either side of his chest. As Abel thrashed, Cain held his brother's head underwater, sobbing at him, until Abel's movements grew weaker. Then he raised his brother out of the water and, with a great blow, smashed a nearby stone upon his brother's skull.

Abel fell to the Earth, unconscious. He would heal, in time. That was his gift, and his curse.

Cain staggered to his feet and back to Ruth. The skin of her stomach had already begun to knit together, the skin of her face smooth out, but she was a long, long way from being healed. With all the tenderness of a lover, Cain scooped the young woman into his arms and held her close. Then he ran, ran as fast as he'd ever run-out of Eden, and into the rainy night beyond. He stopped for nothing, not even the guardian, until they were many miles from the homeland of the dragons.

***

Abel awoke as the first rays of dawn touched his bleached skin. He sat up slowly, the gash on his forehead fully healed, and looked over to the flattened, bloody grass beside him. There lay his daughter's body, nestled in flakes of her mother's burned skin.

Like Amos before him, Abel put back his head and roared.