At two years old, Cain and Abel can be extraordinarily intelligent and clearly supernatural.
Adam had spent years telling himself that the war against Greece was necessary.
By the time Rome finally marched, he had stopped pretending that his motivation was complicated.
He wanted Greece gone.
Not conquered.
Not humbled.
Not forced to surrender.
Gone as a power capable of repeating what it had done.
Adam had tried nearly everything else.
He had answered their questions.
He had given them knowledge.
He had withdrawn when they became possessive.
He had tried to remain passive.
He had even allowed them to believe that his knowledge was dangerous and that they were justified in fearing it.
None of it had worked.
Then they had imprisoned him.
They had sealed him inside molten iron because they were afraid of what he knew.
While he was trapped, his pain had spread through humanity.
Adam had felt people everywhere suffering because of him.
He had eventually forced the connection to narrow until the suffering was concentrated on Greece, and half the country’s population had died.
He had escaped.
But he had never forgotten the experience.
Now he stood with Rome.
The war had begun.
Adam did not command the Roman armies, but he was everywhere they needed him.
He advised Romulus, identified weaknesses, anticipated movements, and provided the knowledge necessary to keep the Roman forces moving forward.
At first, he told himself that this was simply strategy.
Then he started making decisions that went beyond strategy.
“There’s a city ahead,” one of Romulus’s commanders told him.
“They’ve gathered civilians inside.”
Adam looked toward the distant walls.
“Then don’t attack the civilians.”
The commander hesitated.
“What about the soldiers?”
“Separate them.”
“And if they refuse?”
Adam’s eyes remained fixed on the city.
“Then break the defenses.”
There was no emotion in his voice.
That was what worried Remus.
She had known Adam long enough to recognize when he was angry.
He wasn’t shouting.
He wasn’t losing control.
He had simply become very quiet.
The war continued.
Rome took one city.
Then another.
Greece resisted.
Every victory made Adam more confident that the war could succeed.
Every setback made him more determined.
Remus sometimes found him awake late at night, studying maps.
“You should sleep.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You don’t need to eat either.”
Adam looked up.
“Is there a point to this conversation?”
“You used to enjoy arguing with me.”
“I still do.”
“Then argue.”
Adam smiled faintly.
“Fine. I think Greece is going to collapse.”
“Eventually.”
“That’s the part I’m worried about.”
Adam said nothing.
Remus understood that there was no longer anything she could say that would change his mind.
The war was personal now.
Adam wanted to end the responsibility he had created when he gave Greece his knowledge.
He wanted to erase the civilization that had turned that knowledge into entitlement, turned his mother into a target, and eventually turned him into a prisoner.
It was no longer enough for Adam to simply survive what Greece had done.
He wanted to make sure it could never happen again.
His sons made that feeling even stronger.
Cain and Abel were only two years old.
Adam refused to bring them onto the battlefield.
They were brilliant children, far more perceptive than their age suggested, and their powers had already begun developing beyond anything Adam understood.
Abel could summon skeletal animals from the dead, while Cain could call forth radiant creatures of light, feathers, and halos.
But they were still children.
Adam would not turn them into soldiers.
Instead, Remus and Zakiti kept them far from the fighting.
Before one major battle, Adam returned to see them.
Cain was sitting on the ground with a small luminous creature resting beside him.
Abel sat nearby, surrounded by the bones of animals he had recently summoned.
Cain looked up.
“Are you going away again?”
Adam crouched.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Adam hesitated.
“Because there’s something I need to finish.”
Abel looked at him.
“Will you come back?”
Adam smiled.
“Of course.”
The answer came easily.
He had no reason to fear dying.
But the question stayed with him.
Will you come back?
Adam kissed both boys on the forehead.
“I will.”
He stood.
Remus watched him.
She could see the difference immediately.
Adam wasn’t fighting simply because he hated Greece.
He was fighting because he wanted Cain and Abel to grow up in a world where he no longer had to constantly look over his shoulder.
That made the war feel, to him, almost like a responsibility.
And that was precisely what made his anger dangerous.
The final campaign began months later.
Rome advanced.
Greek defenses collapsed.
Adam walked among the soldiers as the battle intensified.
A Greek warrior charged him.
Adam caught the spear with one hand.
The weapon bent.
He pushed the man aside rather than killing him.
Another attacked.
Adam struck him down.
Another came.
Adam struck again.
He was not fighting because he needed to survive.
He was fighting because he wanted the fighting to end.
That distinction became increasingly difficult to see.
Every Greek position that resisted became another obstacle.
Every obstacle became another reason to keep advancing.
Adam stopped ordering restraint when restraint began slowing the army down.
“Take the fortress.”
“We cannot without killing them.”
“Then kill them.”
Remus heard them.
She turned toward him.
“Adam.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“You just ordered them to kill everyone inside.”
“They’re defending Greece.”
“Some of them are civilians.”
Adam looked toward the fortress.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he answered quietly.
“They should have thought about that before they decided to keep fighting.”
Remus stared at him.
There it was.
Not madness.
Something far more controlled.
Adam had taken everything he had felt for centuries the frustration, the helplessness, the deaths, the imprisonment, the pain of humanity, the deaths of people he loved and turned it into a single purpose.
End Greece.
He knew thousands would die.
He knew families would lose parents.
He knew innocent people would be caught in the fighting.
He knew there were people in Greece who had never personally harmed him.
He continued anyway.
Because he had finally convinced himself that the destruction of the whole was worth the elimination of the threat.
The Roman army broke through the final defenses.
Greek resistance collapsed.
Adam stood among the ruins.
The battle was over.
Thousands had died.
Not hundreds.
Thousands.
And Adam knew that he had helped make it happen.
He looked down at the ground.
His anger had gotten him what he wanted.
Greece was no longer capable of threatening him in the way it once had.
But there was no satisfaction.
Only exhaustion.
Remus approached him.
“Is it over?”
Adam looked toward the ruined city.
“I think so.”
“You won.”
Adam didn’t answer.
After a moment, Remus asked, “Was it worth it?”
Adam stared ahead.
“I don’t know.”
That was the first honest thing he had said all day.
He had spent years believing that if Greece disappeared, the problem would disappear with it.
Now he was standing in the remains of what he had helped destroy, surrounded by thousands of people who would never return home.
His anger had accomplished exactly what he had wanted.
And he suddenly understood why wrath was dangerous.
It did not have to make him irrational.
It only had to make him willing to decide that someone else’s suffering was acceptable because his anger had given him a reason for it.
Adam finally turned away from the battlefield.
He had wanted to protect his family.
He had wanted to end the responsibility created by his own actions.
He had wanted revenge.
And he had achieved all three.
But as he walked away, he realized that victory had not made any of those things feel complete.
For the first time, Adam understood that war did not necessarily ask a person to lose themselves.
Sometimes it simply convinced them that they were justified in using all the control they had.