For the next two years, Rome prepared for war.
Adam did not simply hand Romulus a list of Greek weaknesses and walk away.
He became involved in the preparations, though he deliberately kept himself out of the formal chain of command.
He studied maps, roads, fortifications, supply routes, and the ways Greek forces were likely to respond to an invasion.
His knowledge of Greek customs and their leadership helped Romulus anticipate problems before they occurred, while the experience Adam had accumulated from Egypt, the Hittites, and Avalon gave him a broader understanding of how civilizations behaved when placed under pressure.
Romulus, for his part, took the preparation seriously.
He reorganized portions of the army, improved the movement of supplies, and began coordinating the unusual individuals within his kingdom who possessed mutant abilities.
Adam was particularly interested in how those abilities could be incorporated into an army without turning the entire campaign into chaos.
He did not want Rome depending on a handful of extraordinary individuals for every engagement.
Instead, he showed Romulus how those people could be used where their abilities gave the greatest advantage while ordinary soldiers handled the rest.
Remus spent much of the preparation alongside her brother and Adam.
She had become accustomed to the two men approaching problems from completely different directions.
Romulus thought like a ruler.
Adam thought like someone trying to understand an entire system.
Remus often found herself translating between the two.
One evening, the three were studying a map when Romulus pointed toward a mountain pass.
“If they defend here, the main army will be forced through this valley.”
Adam shook his head.
“They won’t defend it.”
Romulus looked at him.
“Why not?”
“Because they think you’re arrogant enough to attack the obvious route.”
Remus laughed.
Romulus smiled.
“You think I’m predictable.”
“I think you are predictable when you want people to think you’re unpredictable.”
Remus looked between them.
“I hate that I understand both of you.”
The planning continued.
Adam was beginning to see the coming war as something almost mechanical.
Each side had resources, geography, leadership, morale, and weaknesses.
If those variables were arranged correctly, the outcome could be predicted with remarkable accuracy.
He found that aspect of war fascinating in an uncomfortable way.
He still disliked what war represented.
But he had decided that Greece had to fall.
Then, shortly before the Roman attack, Adam noticed something.
It happened during an otherwise ordinary conversation.
Romulus had been asking about the boys.
Cain and Abel had remained mostly away from the political center of Rome, protected by Remus and Zakiti whenever possible.
Their existence was not widely understood, and Adam had been careful not to make them the subject of public attention.
Yet Romulus kept asking about them.
Not casually.
Specifically.
How old were they?
Which one possessed which abilities?
How quickly were they developing?
How did their biology differ?
What had Adam changed in them?
Could their mutations be inherited?
Would they become stronger as they aged?
Adam noticed.
He had spent centuries studying people.
He knew the difference between ordinary curiosity and focused interest.
One evening, Romulus asked again.
“How are the boys?”
Adam looked at him.
“They’re fine.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
Romulus nodded.
“And Cain?”
“Fine.”
“And Abel?”
“Fine.”
There was a pause.
“Have they shown anything new?”
Adam studied his brother-in-law’s face.
“Why are you so interested?”
Romulus smiled.
“They are unusual children.”
“That’s all?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Adam considered the answer.
It wasn’t convincing.
Not entirely.
There was something underneath the questions.
Something Romulus wasn’t saying.
Adam knew it.
He also knew that Remus had noticed.
She caught his eye from across the room.
Neither said anything.
Adam could have pressed the matter.
He could have asked Romulus directly.
He could have investigated.
But the invasion was days away.
For once, Adam chose not to dig deeper.
He told himself it could wait.
He told himself that Romulus had understandable reasons for being interested in the children.
He told himself that whatever the man’s intentions were, they could be dealt with after Greece had been destroyed as a threat.
More than anything, Adam simply wanted the war finished.
He had spent too long dealing with Greece.
Too many people had died.
Too many years had been wasted.
And Adam had finally convinced himself that there was only one way to end the cycle.
Greece had to cease being capable of repeating it.
So when Remus quietly asked him later that night whether he was concerned about her brother’s interest in Cain and Abel, Adam gave the answer she expected.
“A little.”
“That’s all?” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
“Yes.”
She frowned.
“You don’t think we should ask him?”
Adam shook his head.
“After the war.”
Remus stared at him.
“You trust him?”
Adam hesitated.
“I trust him enough to wait.”
She didn’t like the answer.
But she understood why he had made it.
Adam was exhausted with uncertainty.
For once, he wanted an objective he could complete.
Greece.
That was the objective.
Everything else could wait.
Across Rome, armies prepared to march.
Weapons were gathered.
Supplies were loaded.
Chariots and cavalry were organized.
Mutants within Romulus’s kingdom were assigned to roles that would allow them to exploit their abilities without exposing them unnecessarily.
Adam stood on a hill overlooking the preparations.
Remus joined him.
“Tomorrow?”
Adam nodded.
“Tomorrow.”
She looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
Adam watched the soldiers below.
“No.”
Remus smiled faintly.
“Good.”
Adam looked at her.
“You said that before.”
“Because it’s still true.”
He laughed quietly.
Then they turned toward the horizon.
The war was about to begin.
And Adam, despite everything he had learned about the consequences of his actions, had once again decided that the end justified the means.
He simply did not realize yet that the man leading the army beside him had his own reasons for wanting the war and that those reasons had something to do with Adam’s sons.
The war between Rome and Greece had been underway for a year when Adam first realized that Cain and Abel were beginning to become something far beyond ordinary children.
Until then, there had been signs.
Small ones.
Strange things that could easily be dismissed as unusual expressions of their mixed heritage.
Adam had watched them closely, of course, but he had resisted making assumptions.
They were still children, and he did not want to treat every unusual behavior as evidence of some predetermined destiny.
That changed one afternoon when Abel disappeared into the woods.
Adam found him standing in a clearing surrounded by the remains of several small animals.
At first he thought something had happened to them naturally.
Then one of the creatures moved.
It stood.
Its bones pulled themselves together with a dry clicking sound, its empty eye sockets turning toward Abel.
Adam stopped.
Abel looked at him.
“I didn’t hurt them.”
Adam crouched down beside him.
“I know.”
Another animal rose.
Then another.
They were not alive.
Adam could feel that immediately.
There were no functioning organs, no normal circulation, no biological processes continuing beneath the bones.
Yet Abel was somehow making them move.
Adam watched as a small skeleton approached his son and sat beside him.
“You summoned them.”
Abel looked at his hands.
“I think so.”
Adam smiled.
“Do you want to try something?”
Abel nodded.
Adam stepped back.
Abel raised his hand.
More animals began emerging from the earth.
A wolf.
A fox.
A bird whose bones assembled themselves from the dirt.
They were all dead, yet each moved with purpose.
Adam stared at them with the same fascination that had once returned to him when he discovered his X-gene.
“This is like mine.”
Abel tilted his head.
“But different.”
“Very different.”
Adam could summon animals connected to humanity’s past, bringing forth living manifestations of creatures that had existed alongside humans.
Abel seemed to possess the inverse.
He could call forth what was already dead.
Not simply memories of animals.
The dead themselves.
Adam watched Abel command the skeletal creatures around him.
They followed him without hesitation.
The effect reminded Adam of the liches he had heard about in stories and seen depicted in the strange games and myths of later cultures: an individual surrounded by the dead, commanding creatures that should never have moved again.
Yet Abel was not malicious.
He was simply discovering what he could do.
Adam sat down beside him.
“How does it feel?”
“Cold.”
Adam considered that.
Abel shook his head.
“No.”
Adam nodded.
That answer was enough for him.
He did not know what Abel would eventually become.
He only knew that his son had discovered something extraordinary.
Cain developed differently.
He had always seemed unnaturally healthy, almost impossibly so, but his abilities began appearing in a way that Adam found equally strange.
The first creature appeared in front of Cain while he was playing.
It looked like a bird.
Except it was made entirely of light.
Its body was surrounded by feathers that seemed almost luminous, and a circular halo floated above its head.
It spread its wings and circled Cain before landing beside him.
Cain laughed.
Adam turned toward the sound.
“What is that?”
Cain looked delighted.
“I made it.”
Adam approached carefully.
The creature had the general shape of an animal, but everything about it felt different.
It possessed no ordinary flesh.
Its body seemed to be composed entirely of radiant energy, and its presence carried an almost serene quality.
The bird disappeared.
Cain raised his hand.
Another creature appeared.
This one resembled a wolf, although it was larger than any ordinary wolf and covered in brilliant feathers along its back and shoulders.
Another halo hovered above its head.
Adam stared.
“Try another.”
Cain concentrated.
A deer appeared.
Then a great cat.
Then something resembling an eagle.
Each was different, but they shared the same strange characteristics: bodies formed from light, feathered features, and halos floating above them like crowns.
Adam looked from Cain to the creatures.
“You summon them.”
Cain nodded.
“Like Dad?”
Adam smiled.
“Like me.”
But not exactly.
Adam understood the distinction almost immediately.
His summons were connected to the living history of humanity and the animals associated with it.
Cain’s appeared to represent something else.
They were not simply animals.
They were almost idealized versions of animals.
Creatures stripped of their ordinary limitations and reconstructed as something more symbolic and radiant.
Adam watched as the feathered wolf moved around Cain, almost as though it were guarding him.
“You’ve become a summoner.”
Cain smiled.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you have a lot to learn.”
Cain looked at his father.
“Are you going to teach me?”
Adam smiled.
“Of course.”
The two brothers could not have been more different.
Abel called upon the dead.
Cain called upon luminous creatures that seemed almost divine.
One surrounded himself with skeletons.
The other with beings of light.
Yet Adam could feel the same underlying truth in both.
They were his sons.
They had inherited something from him.
Something from Remus.
And something else that neither of them had ever possessed before.
Adam stood between them as Cain summoned another radiant creature and Abel called a skeletal wolf to his side.
Remus watched from nearby.
“They’re developing quickly.”
Adam nodded.
“Too quickly.”
She looked at him.
“You worried?”
Adam considered the two boys.
“Curious.”
Remus smiled.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Adam laughed quietly.
“Fine. A little.”
He looked back at his sons.
The Roman-Greek war continued in the distance.
Armies fought.
Cities changed hands.
Men died.
And while the world was preoccupied with its own conflict, two children were quietly developing abilities that Adam suspected could eventually reshape the world far more dramatically than any army could.
Abel raised his hand, and a skeletal elephant slowly emerged from the earth.
Cain laughed and answered by summoning a radiant creature resembling the same animal, except its enormous body was formed of light, covered in feathers, and crowned by a glowing halo.
Adam stared at the two creatures standing beside each other.
Then he laughed.
Remus looked at him.
“What?”
Adam shook his head.
“I think they’re competing.”
The two boys looked at each other.
Cain smiled.
Abel smiled back.
Neither said a word.
Then they both summoned another creature.