“Did you not tell him yourself of the danger?”
She shook her head, staring at the page again. “There are many things in this world I have no trouble taking on faith, Garrit. But this—” she reread the passage again and, putting aside the peculiarities of her last life, tried to consider things reasonably, logically. “It says he received word. Who could he have received word from? I couldn’t have missed an angel knocking on our door. And I can’t imagine Michael deigning to do so, or bothering to speak with a mere mortal, regardless.”
She didn’t quite repress the shiver that ran down her spine at the idea. She would not have been unaware if the angels had come a third time. Michael had made it very clear that if she ever saw him again, it would mean her death. Ghosts would have been preferable.
“I think he would’ve mentioned an angel coming down from on high.” Garrit smiled wryly. “Maybe it was just something he guessed at. Deduced from something you said.”
She regarded him for a long moment. It was clear he didn’t find the how important, only the application of the knowledge. “Perhaps.”
It wasn’t important right now. What Ryam knew or didn’t know five hundred years ago, what Luc, Garrit’s great-grandfather, had thought when she had arrived on his doorstep out of her mind, none of it mattered. She forced herself not to think of the distraction. And absolutely she couldn’t afford to lose herself in that past life and those memories. Adam himself was the problem now and she couldn’t afford to court insanity.
“As it happened, you seemed perfectly capable of dispatching him on your own,” Garrit was saying. “I wonder why we swore a vow at all, if it is so easy as that.”
“He left because I was engaged to you. But he’ll be back, Garrit. If not in this life, then the next. He will keep coming for me, any time he thinks he has half a chance.” Until Michael grew tired of it, and killed them both outright, along with who knew how many countless others. Would she be reborn if he killed her with the sword? Her stomach twisted. If Adam knew, he had never told her. “He is nothing if not persistent. Pig-headedly so.”
Garrit leaned forward, taking the book from her and setting it aside, covering her hands in both of his. “You will be safe with me, Abby. I promise you. I will keep you safe.”
“Because of your vow.” She heard the sorrow in her own voice, and looked away.
He brought her face back to his. “Because you will be my wife, and I love you. The vow has very little to do with that.”
Some of the tightness in her chest lifted, and she breathed more easily. As long as he loved her, she was safe. She had to believe it. “Then you’ve forgiven me?”
He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “If you’ll forgive me for being such a damned fool about it.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” She leaned forward and let him pull her into his lap, her forehead resting against his. No, the past didn’t matter. Not as long as she had Garrit now. Not as long as they were getting married. Adam wouldn’t touch her if she was happily married. He would have no chance of drawing her away. It would be useless, once the vows were exchanged in sacrament, with love. And if Adam was gone, the angel would not come.
For the moment, they were safe. And safer still once she was married.
Chapter Five: Creation
The men returned, dragging something awkwardly between them. Adam stood and she sighed with relief to be free of the press of his body against hers. But her relief fled, replaced with a cold knot in her stomach, as they came closer. They carried a man, dripping from the rain, grizzled and empty. Adam pressed his fingers to the neck below the jaw, frowning at the closed eyes of the body.
She took the opportunity, with Adam distracted, to move farther back against the wall into a corner. The rock was cold and damp, but it was welcome against the flush of her skin. He had not let her move more than a finger’s width from him, holding her fast against his side when she tried to shift away.
“Take it away.” Adam turned from the wrinkled, gray man and dropped back to the floor beside her. “There’s little enough space for shelter without keeping the dead. Let the angels have what’s left, if they want it.”
The two men who had carried the body between them glanced at one another, but they stepped back into the rain, returning a moment later without their burden. Water dripped down their bodies from their hair. One of the men glanced at her as he passed, his eyes dark like the earth, and soft. Softer still when she met them, holding his gaze. His lips thinned, lines wrinkling his forehead. Would his hands be as warm as Adam’s, if he touched her? Somehow, she did not think they would be as hard, pushing and twisting and drawing her too near.
He settled back into the dirt and shadow on the other side of the cave where she could no longer see his face, and she did not think she would learn the answer soon.
Adam covered her knee with his hand, still staring out the mouth of the cave into the rain. “You’ll see, Eve.” Though he said her name, she wasn’t sure he expected her to listen. “We’ll be gods among them.”
“Gods?” She shifted her position and brought her knees back to her chest again. His hand dropped away, but she rubbed at the place it had been. The warmth of his palm had seeped into her skin. It made her feel too hot. Too hot and too close to him.
His lips curved. “I forget that you weren’t welcomed to this life the way we were. Elohim was already gone when your eyes opened. Only a husk remaining. Just as well.” The last was mumbled and the smile left his face. He studied her again with his hard eyes. “You are the last woman made, Eve. The last and the most important. Elohim made you. He made all of us, all of this. Trees and grasses, flowers and moss, birds and fish and dogs and all the other animals to please me and give me joy. But you above all were made to be my companion. My equal. Made for me more than any of the others.”
She shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold of the stone on her skin, or the chill in the air from the rain and the wind, or the thunder that rolled through the stone into her bones. “Will you not make others?”
“No.” His eyes flashed and he scowled at the rain. “I don’t have the power to wake life from the dust.” His voice was tight and clipped, each word ground from between his teeth. His jaw tensed and something twitched beneath the surface. Then it stopped and he seemed to exhale all the rest of the strain in a long breath. “But it’s only a matter of time. When I find what I’m looking for, it will be within my power to do anything.”
He touched her cheek then, and she heard what he didn’t say. With the fruit, not even the angels will stop me. I will know their secrets, too. Elohim meant it to be this way. This was his gift to me. Every plant, every animal. Including the tree. Or else why would He have made it at all?
She turned her face away, leaning her head back against the cool stone and closing her eyes again. The storm had been going on for so long. The rain thundered in her ears, and her head ached. The darkness helped. But then he took her hand in his and she could see herself through his eyes, the curves of her breasts, the rich brown of her hair when the lightning flashed. It was starting to get darker now. Less light was coming through the storm into the cave.
She tried to pull away, but his grip hardened, twisting her fingers until they popped, and she cried out, looking up at his face. It was expressionless, and he tightened his hand further for just a moment, staring into her eyes. There was nothing soft about his gaze.
He let go and rose. “Sleep, Eve. Think about what I’ve told you. What I’m offering.”
He leaned against the wall of the cave, near the mouth, his back to her. When he stayed there, she crawled away into the dark. Where he would not see her to touch her. Where he would not see her to pull her close. Where she could close her eyes without seeing through his.
A hand on her shoulder, warm and rough, startled her awake. Sleep felt so much like the peace before she had come into being that she choked back a sound of pain upon waking from it. Her eyes burned and what litt
le she could see blurred. She rubbed her face, and her hand came away damp.
“Forgive me.” The hand fell away. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” It was a man’s voice, but lower than Adam’s.
Fear. Was that what it was when her heart beat so heavily against her chest? What she had felt when Adam pulled her close and wouldn’t let her go? She sat up and searched for his face in the dark. The whites of his eyes were just barely visible.
She reached to touch him, this man who wasn’t Adam, to feel where he was. “Who are you?”
“Reu.” He caught her hand and brought it to his face. His hair was damp, and his touch was light, soft. She wished she could see his eyes. “Are you well?”
He was right beside her. Closer than she had realized. But now she knew where to look, she could almost see him there, kneeling. “Should I not be?”
“He hurt you,” he said, quiet still. There were others speaking, their voices low, barely audible above the noise of the rain. “I heard you cry out.”
She pulled her hand back and it slipped from his. He didn’t tighten his hold like Adam had. Just let go. “Where is he?”
Even his eyes disappeared in the shadows when he moved. “He went to his chambers. You’re safe for now. Until morning. He wasn’t pleased you crawled away.”
“He told me to sleep.”
He sighed and she saw his eyes again, flashing in the dark. “You have to be careful, Eve. You shouldn’t upset him.”
She pulled her knees up to her chest, searching for his face. “What happened to that other man? The one with the gray hair.”
“Elohim.” His voice hollowed, making her chest tighten strangely. “He gave the last of His strength to you. To bring you to life from the dust and make you immortal, like Adam.”
“I don’t understand.” They kept telling her these things, but it felt like it was only pieces of the whole. She wasn’t sure what any of it meant. What it meant to her. For her life. What it meant even to live. “Adam said I was made as his companion.”
“Adam is blinded by pride. Spoiled by God’s indulgence. You were made to live. Not to be his slave, used and abused for his pleasure. None of us were.” He spoke the way Adam had, when he had told her he lacked the power he desired. Anger, she thought.
But even naming it made her uneasy. Anger wasn’t something she should know so soon. And fear. Why would the voice have brought her here, torn her from the peace she had known? She could not shake the feeling of wrongness, so thick in the air.
“The other things that were made,” she asked, because Adam had said it was not only her he owned, “what about them?”
“Adam believes we are all his to grind back into the dust. But Elohim never meant for things to be this way. That’s why He made you. We’re meant to be free, Eve. To love and to laugh. To be unafraid.”
She closed her eyes. It wasn’t that much darker than the cave, but it was more comfortable. Choosing not to see, rather than being unable to do so. Her eyes ached from trying to find the shape of this man in the shadow.
“I don’t understand.” Nothing made sense. Not the things Adam said, or the things this Reu told her, or the things Adam didn’t say. None of it seemed to fit together. Adam said the confusion would pass, but it hadn’t. It was getting even more twisted and her head felt slow and thick. “I don’t understand any of this. Am I supposed to? Was I made wrong, that I don’t understand?”
“No.” She felt his hand on hers, warm and dry, but gentle. Adam had touched her gently, too, at first. But it hadn’t lasted even this long. “Forgive me, Eve. It’s easy to forget how difficult it is in the beginning. How hard it is to understand everything that’s happening before you even have the words to describe the sky. And it’s been a long time for me. Several moons. I should have waited to speak with you, but I didn’t know when I would have another chance. Adam will keep you close. He’s made that clear.”
She only really understood the last part, and something inside her twisted. “He says that I’m his.”
“You’re not.” And she heard the anger in his voice again, and a new hardness. “You don’t belong to anyone, Eve. Least of all him. Don’t let him tell you otherwise. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
She shook her head. “How can you be so certain?”
“I was second made. Sometimes, Elohim even asked me to walk with Him.” From his voice, she thought this was important, but she didn’t know why. “At the end, He spoke with me more often. Before you were made. He said that you would be cast in His image, as Adam had been, but He meant to give you His Grace as well.”
Grace. The word tugged at something inside her, something from before, when she had floated through the void, but she could not grasp it. “Perhaps in time, this will all make more sense to me.”
He sighed softly, his hand tightening around hers. Then he let go. She missed the warmth when it was gone, and even the pressure of his fingers. When he touched her, it didn’t hurt. She just felt… calmed.
“I hope it will.” She heard him stand, a darker shadow in the black. “Rest. It will be easier in the morning. I promise.”
She curled back up against the earth, and closed her eyes. But in the dark, she saw the warm brown gaze of the man who had carried Elohim’s body out into the rain. A man very unlike Adam.
Chapter Six: 1026 BC
Thor took his time returning from the east, knowing he could not avoid stopping in Egypt. Word of the Hebrew exodus had reached him even on his travels, and he had not been much surprised to hear they had been led out by a man who had once been a prince named Moses. The baby he had saved.
But Ra grinned when they met at last, clasping hands with him. “It is good to see you again, my friend. Very good. How was your trip?”
“I was received warmly.” Thor returned the older god’s smile. Either Ra did not suspect his part, or did not care, and Thor was surprised how happy it made him to know they could continue in friendship. “Word of my coming had reached Bhagavan-Shiva ahead of me. He said you had promised me safe conduct and I was to consider myself his most honored guest as your friend.”
Ra nodded. “Some wine to rinse the dust from your throat?”
“I would be most grateful.” Thor went to the window, which looked out on the river, and ran a hand over his face. Egypt did not seem to have suffered much for the loss of its slaves. The temples still shone with gold, silver, and jewels.
A servant appeared at his elbow, offering a cup of wine with a bow, and Thor accepted it. This throne room was part of Pharaoh’s own, a back room known only to those who served Ra and to Pharaoh himself. Every whisper of request was attended to almost immediately, the servants anxious to please their god.
“And how did you find the company of the Olympians? I imagine Zeus was quite interested in you, as similar as your strengths are.”
Thor shrugged. Zeus had been determined to see Thor drunk beneath his table, and the other Olympians seemed eager only for whatever gossip he could share. “The goddesses seemed pleased by my gifts. I had not realized how fond they were of golden apples.”
Ra chuckled, joining him at the window. “I did hear that someone had inscribed a message on one. For the fairest, it said.”
“Indeed.” Thor had never met a vainer group of goddesses than those living on Olympus. Aphrodite and Hera in particular. He glanced at the other god’s face, but Ra did not meet his eyes. “What happened?”
“It must have been after you left them. You did hear about the Trojan War, I trust?”
“Only that it devastated the Greeks to win.”
Ra smiled, but it was thin. “That was the least of it. We came very close to losing the world, Thor, simply to relieve Aphrodite’s boredom. There are times I wonder if allowing the Olympians to settle was worth it, but then Athena comes to see me and I’m reminded why I was convinced.”
“She is a brilliant goddess, to be sure. The best of the lot.” But Thor’s thoughts were still distracted by
Ra’s comments about the war. “What do you mean, about losing the world?”
“Aphrodite gave Eve into Adam’s hands. Eve was Helen of Sparta, of course, though how she was born a child of Zeus will give the Olympians nightmares for centuries. And Aphrodite helped Adam steal her.”
“Is that so terrible?”
Ra looked up at him, his face gray. “Their child would inherit this world in its entirety, and have the power of the True God to change it, or destroy it utterly. Everything we had built would be lost. At best, we would be cast out of this plane, at worst wiped from existence.”
Thor set down his wine, his stomach gone sour. “Why would the True God allow such a thing?”
“He is old and has not the strength even to govern his own creation, or else none of us would be permitted here. I think his children are the only hope he has left, but the risk is too great. Even Michael and the angels fear it.” Ra’s gaze remained distant, his expression grooved with some remembered pain he did not share. “Perhaps it would not be so terrible a thing, but for Adam. We should all be grateful he does not know who or what he is, or nothing would stop him. He is a much more agreeable creature, living in ignorance.”
Thor shook his head. He had met Adam briefly, on his way east. The flicker of his aura, like the glow of electrum, impossible to miss after Thor had watched Eve for so long. Adam was a selfish man, and ambitious to be sure. Thor had lingered long enough to see him turn a village against its chief with nothing but charm and charisma. Adam had negotiated his marriage to the man’s daughter, placing himself in the best position possible before beginning his campaign, and then it had only been a word here and there in the right ears, each argument carefully chosen to undermine the chieftain. He had worked as smoothly as Loki to reach his goal, and Thor could well imagine the man could be dangerous in the wrong circumstances.
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