The Seer’s Sister: Prequel to The Magic Eaters Trilogy
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The Seer’s Sister
Prequel to The Magic Eaters Trilogy
Carol Beth Anderson
Contents
Characters and Places
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
A Note from Beth
The Frost Eater: Book 1 of the Magic Eaters Trilogy
Acknowledgements
About the Author
The Frost Eater by Carol Beth Anderson
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Published by
Eliana Press
P.O. Box 2452
Cedar Park, TX 78630
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www.carolbethanderson.com
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Copyright © 2020 by Carol Beth Anderson
Excerpt from The Frost Eater by Carol Beth Anderson, Copyright © 2020 by Carol Beth Anderson
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All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
beth@carolbethanderson.com
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Cover Design:
Mariah Sinclair (thecovervault.com)
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First Edition
To my siblings, Sean and Becki. They make the world better; they make me better; and they made this book better with their honest feedback.
Characters and Places
Characters
Rona Abrinan, a seer
Ellin Abrinan (uh-BRY-nan), Rona’s sister
Kizha (KEE-zhuh), Rona’s friend
Trett Stelios (STEE-lee-ose), Ellin’s boyfriend
Alvun Merak (AL-vunn MARE-ack), owner of Merak Technologies
Arisa (uh-REE-suh) Merak, Alvun’s wife
Tereza (terr-AY-zuh), works for Merak
Jovan (joe-VAHN), works for Merak
Dr. Efren Rouven (ROO-ven), Merak researcher
Dr. Nomi (NO-mee) Anson, Merak researcher
Dr. Septimus (SEP-tih-muss), known as Sep, Merak researcher
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Places
Anyari (ann-YAHR-ree), a planet settled by human colonists
Vallinger (VAL-in-jer), a country in Anyari’s northern hemisphere
Stollton (STOLE-tun), the city in Vallinger where Ellin, Rona, and Trett live
Amler (AM-ler), a city in Vallinger, home of Merak Technologies’ headquarters
Therro (THAIR-oh), a country in Anyari’s southern hemisphere
Cellerin (SELL-err-in) Mountain, in Therro
Krenner, a city in Therro
1
WEDNESDAY, QUARI 3, 6293
THE END, Rona wrote on the calendar square.
Ellin stood behind her sister’s chair and glanced at the words. “End of what?”
“Humanity. Most of us, anyway.” Rona’s shoulders lifted in a little shrug.
Ellin had entered the room to discuss their dinner plans. All at once, her appetite fled, and her thoughts blurred into a thick haze. She stared at the whorl of short hair on the crown of Rona’s head.
At last, one thought wriggled free from Ellin’s sluggish brain: Rona shrugged. Mind sparking back to life, Ellin scrambled to interpret the gesture: She was joking. Or she’s not sure what she saw.
She opened her mouth to voice her suspicions, but nothing came out, because she knew the truth: Rona was a seer. She didn’t joke about her visions. And her certainty was only matched by her accuracy.
Ellin drew a deep breath and turned away. It didn’t help. In her mind’s eye, she still saw Rona, pen in hand, her prophecy scrawled in stark, black ink on the white page. Gritting her teeth, Ellin spun back around. She grasped her sister’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. “I’m going to stop it.”
Rona looked up. Her eyes, unblinking and calm, met Ellin’s. “Please do.”
After getting a large glass of water, Ellin returned to the kitchen table and sat across from Rona. Countless questions raced through her mind, and she blurted out the most urgent ones. “How’s it going to happen? What do you mean by most of us? What can I do?”
Rona’s pale-brown eyes locked onto Ellin, and she spoke in a low, flat voice, relating what she’d seen and ignoring the other questions. “I was at the indoor produce market, and I felt a vision coming on, so I stepped between a couple of stalls. I saw the same market in my vision, but it was full of dead people. One man was standing there, looking down at all the bodies, screaming.”
Ellin took a deep breath and blew it out. “Could you tell how they’d died?”
“It looked like something had bleached their skin and hair. They were as white as paper, and they had blood coming out of their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears.” She blinked twice. “It was as terrible as it sounds.”
It took a lot for Rona to admit such a thing. Ellin ran her fingers through her wavy, brown, shoulder-length hair, waiting for her sister to continue. After several seconds, she prompted, “What happened next?”
Folding her arms tightly across her chest, Rona said, “I could tell I hadn’t seen the whole vision, and I didn’t want to put off the rest of it. So I came home and lay on my bed. I saw scenes from all over the world. Every continent and island on Anyari will be affected.”
She picked up Ellin’s glass and took a drink, seemingly unaware it was her sister’s water. “I saw thousands of people. All but three were dead. When the vision stopped, I picked up my calendar and brought it to the table. It fell open to the right page, and I knew the day it would happen.”
“That’s when I walked in?” Ellin asked.
“I heard you walk up, and I couldn’t think of a better way to tell you than to write what I did.”
“THE END.” Ellin released a short, awkward laugh. “Pretty melodramatic, don’t you think?”
Rona remained stoic. “When I wrote those words, I knew they were true. They wrapped up the prophecy. Our world is ending.” Her forehead crinkled, and she covered her mouth with her hands before releasing a sob.
Ellin froze. Rona didn’t cry. She hadn’t even shed a tear eight years earlier when their parents had died in the Skytrain crash. Or if she had, she’d done it alone.
“I’m sorry.” Ellin reached out tentatively toward Rona. Then she thought about all the times she’d come to her sister for comfort after the crash and received blank stares in return. She pulled her glass back across the table, like that was what she’d intended.
Rona’s jaw flexed, and she breathed deeply through her nose. Once she got her emotions in check, which didn’t take long, she said, “It’s immutable.”
Ellin brought one hand up to her mouth and let out a high-pitched “Oh.” An immutable prophecy was set in stone. The whole world working together couldn’t prevent it from coming true. “Then how . . . how can I stop it?”
“I have no idea, but you’re supposed to try.�
��
“How do you know that?”
“The same way I know it’s going to happen.”
Ellin shook her head. She was in the kitchen where she ate every day, sitting in one of the padded chairs they’d used for as long as she could remember, hands resting on their old, scratched table. Yet everything felt different—surreal and wrong. “I don’t get it,” she said softly.
“Neither do I, but it’s all true.” Rona stood, like she thought the conversation had reached a satisfactory conclusion. “I’m going to take a shower.”
It wasn’t until she was gone that another important question occurred to Ellin: When? She hadn’t looked at the date as Rona wrote her dire message. Her gaze darted to the calendar. Curiosity and dread warred inside her, freezing her in place for several long minutes.
Probing tendrils of panic began to squeeze her lungs. Ellin forced life back into her arms, reached out, and touched the calendar’s closed cover.
The connection with a physical object was just what her reeling mind needed. She ran her hand across the cover, allowing its smooth texture to anchor her to the present, then brushed her fingertips across the slight indentations where her sister had written her name: Rona Abrinan.
Ellin shook her head, pulling her hand and eyes away from the thin book. She’d never understood Rona’s insistence on paper calendars. They were exorbitantly expensive due to environmental regulations. Digital calendars on flexscreens had more features, but Rona liked writing with a real pen on paper pages.
Well, if Rona wants to spend her limited money that way, it’s her prerogative. Ellin had learned not to argue such points. Rona was twenty-six and was convinced she always knew better than her eighteen-year-old sister.
Ellin’s pounding heart and rushing breaths brought her back to the present. The world’s ending, and I’m criticizing what kind of calendar my sister uses? A laugh burst from her chest, and she covered her mouth with both hands. What the hell is wrong with me? Dragging her eyes back to the table, Ellin sent herself a single, silent command: Focus!
Her mind was too scattered, her body too frenzied. One thing was clear: she couldn’t do this alone.
Ellin grabbed the calendar and rushed to the front door. She threw on a light jacket and slipped the calendar in her pocket, then exited the small house.
She stopped before she reached the street. Her rapid breaths were making her lightheaded. Standing under a fernfrond tree, she closed her eyes and forced herself to take deep, slow breaths of the cool, early spring air.
Within a couple of minutes, her heart rate was below panic range, and she was confident she could walk without passing out. She opened her eyes, stepped onto the sidewalk, and turned right.
“Good evening, Ellin!”
Ellin turned. Her next-door neighbors were eating dinner on their patio. “Nice night to eat outside,” she called.
“Sure is,” one of the men said. “How’s school? Still aiming for the top?”
“It’s going well.”
The other man laughed. “I’m sure that’s an understatement.”
“Have a great night.” Ellin waved again and continued down the street. A solarcar passed her, followed by a young woman on a hover scooter, or hov. Everything was so pleasant and normal—the vehicles, the neighbors, the safe streets and crisp air. Rona and her doomsday promises were just a few dozen steps away, but out here, worldwide destruction felt impossibly distant.
Ellin put her hand in her jacket pocket, touching the little calendar book. The questions roared back into her mind: When? How? Why? Can I stop it? CAN I STOP IT?
She pulled her hand out and shook it off, like the book had burned her. The calendar held the answer to the when question, but even with the pleasant, normal world surrounding her, she couldn’t look at it alone. It could wait a few more minutes, until she was with Trett.
A sudden fear hit her: What if he’s not home? She had no idea what his plans were for the evening. It was Wednesday, and other than seeing him at school, she hadn’t communicated with him all week. She’d been busy studying, as usual, and he’d been patient, as usual. She could pull out her flexscreen and send him a quick message to make sure he was home, but she knew what she’d find if she opened her messages: ems from him she’d forgotten to respond to, despite her best intentions.
Why do I always do that? One of these days, his patience will run out. It was a frequent worry Ellin battled with—but not as often as she worried that she’d lose her ranking at the top of her class and the university scholarship she’d been promised.
I should be studying right now.
No, I should be with Trett, making sure he remembers I exist.
Ellin’s arm brushed against the edge of the calendar sticking out of her pocket, and awareness of the horrid prophecy reentered her mind, bringing her internal debate to a halt. She had no idea how to properly cope with an impending apocalypse, but she was pretty sure it was counterproductive to obsess about her boyfriend and scholarships.
She forced herself to focus again on Rona’s unthinkable descriptions of the future. White skin and hair. Bleeding faces. Death everywhere. No escape.
Ellin’s hard-fought calm fled as two horrifying words—THE END—dug their claws into her consciousness, turning into a rhythmic, internal chant. The terrible refrain brought her all the way to Trett’s house. Even the double-tap of her knuckles on the pale-yellow door resonated in her mind not as knocks, but as a two-word harbinger of Anyari’s destruction. THE END.
She stared at the door, begging it to open.
2
WEDNESDAY, QUARI 3, 6293
Rona stepped out of the shower, dried off, and dressed in her favorite sleepwear, a pair of ultra-soft, yellow pants and a matching tank top. It was time for dinner, and while her brain told her she was hungry, her stomach hurt. In a post-vision state, or PVS, she’d get sick if she tried to eat. Today’s PVS felt more severe than any she’d experienced in years. Just thinking about food brought on a wave of nausea.
She got in bed and had just quieted her mind enough to doze off when the flexscreen on her nightstand buzzed, waking her. She sat up and grabbed the wadded-up device, then pressed its corner. The thin, pliable screen flattened and firmed up. The pinch also activated a fingerprint scanner, and the screen lit up, having confirmed her identity.
Her message icon was glowing, so she tapped it. An em from Kizha read,
How’s your day going?
Rona typed,
Just fine, yours?
Then she deleted the message, shaking her head. I can’t lie to her like that. Instead, she typed,
Vision today. PVS.
She sat back, waiting for a reply.
Kizha was the only person Rona had ever told about her gift. They were both accountants, and they’d met through an online conference five years earlier. They’d gradually become close friends, the only such relationship Rona had ever had.
It was impossible to cultivate normal friendships while living such an abnormal life. Rona had been four years old when her parents realized she was a seer. Even then, she sensed how strange she was. Later, she learned there hadn’t been a seer in over a hundred years.
Historical seers had played prominent roles in Anyari’s major societies. People had generally treated them well as long as their prophecies were positive, then ridiculed and rejected them when news turned bad. Some seers had been killed by frightened governments or angry vigilantes.
Rona hadn’t known all that at four years old. All she knew was that she had to keep her visions a secret. When she was a little older, her parents explained why.
“We live in a good world,” her mother said, “but there are still mean people who hurt others, just because they’re different.”
When she was older, Rona’s parents told her about their other fear. Seers of the past who had survived to old age invariably lost their minds. Their visions stopped coming true, and in time, their sanity disintegrated completely. At the end o
f a seer’s life, prophecy, imagination, and reality became indistinguishable.
Perhaps if no one knew about Rona’s gift, her parents reasoned, she’d avoid rejection and violence. If she was free from the pressures of being a famous seer, maybe she could even retain her sanity. Her parents had schooled her at home, keeping her away from other children who might witness her having visions.
Rona had no doubt her life would have been difficult if everyone knew about her gift. She wasn’t cut out to be a public figure; she wouldn’t have handled the scrutiny well. Was her solitary life a worthwhile trade-off, though? She tried not to think too much about that question.
By the time Ellin was born, eight-year-old Rona had learned to keep not only her visions to herself, but most of her other thoughts too. It never occurred to her to befriend her sister; she was accustomed to only interacting with her parents. As Ellin grew, she asked questions about Rona’s odd behavior. When the sisters were ten and eighteen, their parents at last shared the family secret with Ellin, and she vowed to protect the information.