The Frost Eater (The Magic Eaters Trilogy Book 1)

by Carol Beth Anderson

  Nora followed Krey’s gaze as he looked up at the home. It was two stories tall, made of white stone. There were over twenty windows on the front of the building. Everything about the building was pristine. There was no moss or mold on the stone; the shrubs in front were meticulously trimmed; and the windows were so clean, they were almost invisible.

  Krey let out a little laugh. “How do you, your dad, and your aunt manage to survive in such a shack?”

  Nora ignored the question and continued around to the back of the house, where a small room jutted out. The stone walls there were paler than the rest of the house.

  “What is this place?” Krey put a hand on the stone. “It looks new.”

  “It’s been here for twelve years.” Nora unlocked the door. They stepped inside, and she flipped a switch on the wall. A single bulb hanging from the low ceiling turned on, illuminating the tiny room. Large chests lined the walls, leaving a small, open passage of wooden flooring between them. On top of one of the chests sat a folded blanket. A door connected the room to the main building.

  “No skylights in here, huh?” Krey asked.

  “We don’t want the sun shining in this building. The electricity comes from a solar panel array.”

  Krey’s eyes widened. “Solar panels?”

  “Yeah.”

  He shook his head, and Nora wished she hadn’t said anything. The palace was the only place in Cellerin with solar panels. Before The Day, technology had been incredibly advanced. Most of it, however, couldn’t be reproduced—not only due to the lack of infrastructure, but also because ancient digital storage systems had disintegrated long ago, taking much of the world’s preday knowledge with them.

  Engineers, funded by the royal coffers, had looked at old solar panels and experimented for years before successfully creating their own version. The king’s goal was to spread solar power throughout the country.

  Krey was examining the wall on either side of the open doorway. It was half a met thick. “Insulated?” he asked.

  “Yes. Even the doors and ceiling.”

  Krey nodded. “Pretty sure I know what’s in these chests.” Without asking permission, he lifted the lid of one. It was full of ice chips, each about the size of a thumbnail. His face broke into a smile.

  Nora grinned and opened a chest on the opposite side of the room. It contained much larger slabs of ice, as long as her forearm. “This is how they come to us. People break them apart as I need them.”

  He stiffened. “By people, you mean servants?”

  “Staff.” She gestured back at the chest he was standing in front of. “Go ahead, eat some.”

  He closed it. “That’s okay.”

  “Consider it thanks for whatever job they give you at the palace. Any time you need ice, just find me, and I’ll get you some.”

  “My apprenticeship is my compensation for working here.” Krey folded his arms. “This place is cramped. Let’s finish our tour.”

  Nora sighed and led him out of the room, locking the door. “We’re both too dirty to go in the main palace. I’ll show you your dorm.”

  Krey responded with a curt nod. They exited through the residential gate and walked east, soon entering a lush, manicured garden. There weren’t many flowers in late fall, but it was still beautiful, with paths winding between Original and Anyarian plants.

  Krey didn’t comment on the garden. “You said the icehouse is twelve years old. I guess that was about the time you developed your magic?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “A storage space just for your fuel. Nobody would want a princess to suffer for even a day without the means to practice her magic. This trip must’ve been torture for you.” Underneath his casual tone ran a thick ribbon of scorn.

  She swiveled her head, fixing him with a stare. “You seem angry. What’s your problem, anyway?”

  He didn’t look at her, only muttering, “I’m fine.”

  They exited the garden into a small, forested area, full of evergreens. “Tell me, Nora,” Krey said, “What happens if you don’t need all that ice?”

  “It melts. There are drains in the chests, and there’s a pan under the floor that collects—”

  “Got it,” he snapped. “Your ice melts while poverty-stricken frost eaters in Cellerin City set out cups of water, praying for a freeze. Most of the year, they have to save up their coins just to get a block of ice every few weeks or months. I bet they use every bit of it before it melts.” He stopped and looked up. They’d reached a blocky, two-story building with rows of identical windows. “I take it this is my new home?”

  “Yes. You’ll live here with some of the household staff and guards. I think there are a couple dozen residents.” She gestured. “I’ll take you inside; someone will be there to show you—”

  Again, he interrupted her. “I can find my own way. I know you want to get home.” He turned and locked eyes with her. “This dorm looks nice. It’s almost as big as your house.” He spun around and strode to the front door.

  5

  Once, when we were sixteen, my friend and I sneaked away to the abandoned city east of our community.

  It wasn’t the death in the city that scared me the most. It was the life—the person I saw out of the corner of my eye, peeking from a broken window. The man who crouched on a roof, watching us with wild eyes.

  What kind of person prefers the company of millions of bones to that of fellow humans?

  -The First Generation: A Memoir by Liri Abrios

  Krey shivered as he exited his dorm building. Winter would begin in a few days, and he could feel it in the air. He buttoned his coat, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked toward the front gate. The lawns had a thick layer of frost on them. Krey scooped some up and ate it, then blew soft snowflakes out of his mouth, relishing the cold, magical tingle on his tongue and throat.

  At the gatehouse, he greeted Ovrun and chatted with all the guards. They opened a pedestrian gate for him, and he ventured onto the street.

  The sun was barely up, but nearly twenty people waited for the royal chapel to open. Krey wondered why each of them were visiting. Were they coming to curse the stone or honor it?

  Rimorian religious leaders insisted no one should worship the stone. However, Krey had met plenty of people, mostly fellow magic eaters, who believed the artifact in that chapel was a gift from God. In bringing magic to Anyari, they argued, the stone had connected humans to their colony planet.

  While he didn’t agree with their reasoning, Krey understood it. Magic eaters could only use Anyarian fuel. Vine eaters, for instance, had to eat Anyarian, not Original, plants. Blood eaters fueled their healing talents with the yellow blood of Anyarian animals, not the red blood of fellow humans. Magic, it seemed, was a unique gift, given only to humans on this particular planet.

  Dragons, unicorns, and sea serpents, which had appeared on Anyari after The Day, also figured into this belief system. These magical creatures played prominent roles in some of Earth’s ancient myths. Those who honored the stone claimed that it had somehow tapped into humanity’s tall tales, turning them into reality.

  Krey wasn’t sure how a fire-breathing reptid was supposed to make him feel connected to his planet, nor how people could worship a stone that had killed most of their ancestors. To each their own, I guess.

  Other than the devoted, chilly souls waiting in front of the chapel, there weren’t many people on the street. It was Sunday; everyone else was probably sleeping in. Krey hadn’t even been tempted to sleep late. His apprenticeship and his job would both start the next day. He had one full day of freedom, and he’d put it to good use.

  Zeisha’s parents had shown Krey the letters their daughter had sent them. Krey knew they thought Zeisha was purposefully rebuffing him. Ignoring their pity, he’d copied every word of the letters, including the return address in Cellerin City. The palace grounds were on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by farms. According to the gate guards, Zeisha’s location was several clommets away.

&nbs
p; Krey picked up his pace. He passed preday buildings, constructed of man-made materials (such as stone grown in vats and weatherproof artificial wood), interspersed with postday structures built from natural substances.

  Coming to the top of a small hill, he squinted into the rising sun. Cellerin City lay before him, but he couldn’t quite see the crumbling, preday metropolis he knew existed in the distance. He’d seen drawings of ancient cities, with their tall buildings stretching into the sky. The huge structures stirred a desire in him, a longing to return to humanity’s past when technology reigned and nearly anything was possible.

  Well, anything except preventing an apocalypse. Maybe it wasn’t all that great.

  After Krey had walked for half an hour, the buildings of Cellerin City surrounded him. Compared to the ruins in the east, this place was hardly a city at all. About a hundred thousand of the kingdom’s half-million citizens lived in the capital and its outskirts.

  Krey followed the instructions the guards had given him, taking a right on a large thoroughfare. Shopkeepers were posting OPEN signs while vendors set up carts on the edges of the street. Even at this hour, a fair number of people were out and about. A woman on an orsa passed Krey, and he saw a small carriage driving farther up the road. Some pedestrians walked on the wooden sidewalks. Others, like Krey, stuck to the dirt road. The last thing he wanted was to be mowed down by someone zooming down the sidewalk on a push scooter.

  To Krey’s left, a food cart vendor tossed a handful of something into her mouth, then grinned and waved at Krey. “Good morning!” Gray powder covered her hand and teeth.

  Ash eater. It was a convenient talent for someone who cooked food all day. The woman could create magical flames so long as she had a steady supply of ashes to eat. She probably got her fuel from other food vendors.

  Krey returned the vendor’s smile and kept walking until he found the large bank the guards had told him to look for. He turned left, then scrambled to the edge of the road to avoid an oncoming steamcar. That’s not something you’d see in Tirra.

  On his right was a park, mostly empty at this time of day. Krey’s eyes narrowed. Despite it being the end of autumn, the trees, all of them deciduous, were covered in green fronds. That could only mean one thing.

  His suspicions were confirmed when he spied a woman with her hands on a tree trunk. She had to be a vine eater, or what the pretentious royals would call a plant lyster. As Krey approached, he kept his gaze on the tree’s branches. Long, green fronds sprouted and grew all over the tree.

  Krey returned his attention to the vine eater, then halted, nearly tripping. The woman, whose back was to him, was short, with an hourglass figure clearly visible despite her coat. She had masses of black curls.

  The figure, the hair—“Zeisha?”

  The woman didn’t turn. She peeled off a piece of bark and brought it up to her face. Krey knew she was eating it; he’d seen Zeisha do the same thing a hundred times.

  Krey’s breathing quickened as he moved closer. “Zeisha?” He tapped the vine eater’s shoulder.

  She turned. Her eyebrows were raised in a question, but her mouth was too full of bark to speak. The fine lines of middle age surrounded her eyes.

  “Oh—sorry.” Krey pivoted and ran back to the street. The encounter had left his chest tight with desire and disappointment. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. He kept running, Zeisha’s hazel eyes and gentle smile filling his imagination.

  Krey stood in front of a small house. Light-green paint adorned the siding in peeling, faded blotches. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his copies of Zeisha’s letters, double-checking the address.

  This was the right house, but it didn’t look like a vine eater’s home. Zeisha’s yard in Tirra had been lush and green year-round. Here, the only plants were determined weeds. Could she have gotten the address wrong?

  He strode to the front porch. A small sign, hand-painted in sloppy lettering, hung next to the door. It read CELLERIN LYSTER APPRENTICESHIPS.

  Apparently this is the place. Krey knocked and, a few seconds later, knocked harder. When no one came, he pounded at the door with the side of his fist, not stopping until he heard the slide of the deadbolt.

  The door swung open, bouncing against the inside wall. A short, bald man, wearing nothing but a pair of patched drawstring pants with a hole in one knee, glared up at Krey with bleary eyes. “Whaddya want?”

  Krey glanced inside the house, which was crammed with junk. He pointed at the sign. “Is this Cellerin Lyster Apprenticeships?”

  The man stood up straighter and pulled his pants up over his sunken waist. “Sure is.”

  “I’m looking for a friend of mine who came here a couple of months ago. Zeisha Dennivan.”

  “What kinda magic does she eat?”

  Krey raised his eyebrows. Hadn’t Nora told him not to use such terminology in his own apprenticeship? “She’s a vine eater. Are you her instructor?”

  The man coughed without covering his mouth, and spittle flew onto Krey’s shirt. “I’m not a magic eater,” the man said. “This is the office. I do the paperwork.”

  “For all the apprentices in the city?”

  “The ones like your friend. She’s in a special program. But right now, the vine eaters are outta town, getting trained. Sorry.” He backed up, grasping the doorknob.

  Krey stepped over the threshold. “When will they be back?”

  “No idea.” The man made a shooing motion. “Get outta here! I told you, she’s gone.”

  “I’d like to know how I can get in touch with my friend.” Krey took a step closer to the man, who scooted back.

  “What’s your name?” the man asked.

  “Kreyven West.”

  “Listen, Kreyven, every apprentice gives us a list of people we’re allowed to give information to. Your friend—what’s her name again?”

  Krey took yet another step toward the man. “Zeisha Dennivan.”

  “I remember her.” The man thrust his index finger at Krey’s chest. “You’re not on her list.”

  A disturbingly violent image invaded Krey’s mind: him grabbing the man’s index finger and breaking it. He shoved the thought to the side and tried to cover his fury with a calm voice. “Please check. Just to be sure.”

  The man’s cheeks darkened to red. “I don’t need to check! Nobody’s on her list. She started a new life. You’re not part of it!” His eyes flicked to the street behind Krey. “Oh, thank the stone.” He sucked in a breath and yelled, “Get ridda this guy!”

  Krey looked behind him, and the man shoved the door closed, forcing Krey onto the porch. He fell on his backside but quickly recovered, jumping to his feet as the bolt clicked into place.

  Two men were crossing the street toward Krey. They strode across the dead lawn and stopped, trapping him on the porch. They were both tall, with broad chests and thick legs.

  “This is private property,” one of the men said.

  Krey met the man’s stony gaze with his own. “I’m looking for a friend. Get me some answers, and I’ll leave.”

  The same man pointed at the door and said, “If Eb didn’t give you answers, you don’t get answers.” With one hand, he grabbed Krey’s shoulder and pulled him close. In a flash, his other hand moved to Krey’s face. His meaty palm covered Krey’s mouth as his thumb and forefinger squeezed his nose.

  Krey tried to breathe against the man’s hand. He couldn’t. Panic replaced the air in his chest. He clutched his attacker’s wrist with both his hands, but the second man grabbed Krey’s elbows and pulled. Krey lost his grip. The second man wrenched his arms back, holding him with iron-strong hands.

  Krey kicked. The man in front of him blocked the kick with his own foot. In the scuffle, his hand fell off Krey’s face. Krey gulped in air as both men laughed. He tried to pull his arms free, but the man’s grip was too tight.

  The first man approached again, placing his face so close to Krey’s, their noses almost touched. “Your f
riend doesn’t want to see you. Neither do we.” He grabbed Krey’s mouth and nose again. “Next time, I won’t let go.” After squeezing Krey’s cheeks hard, he let go and stepped off the porch, giving a little nod to the man holding Krey.

  A foot connected with the back of Krey’s knees, and as he fell to the porch, the man finally released his arms. Then a boot pressed against the back of Krey’s neck, and the man growled, “Get outta here!”

  As soon as the second man stepped off the porch, Krey leapt to his feet and sprinted away.

  In the Dark: 2

  “Do you know what I look like?” Zeisha whispered. She was sitting on her pallet in the dark room, swathed in blankets. Isla was in the same position, facing Zeisha. They’d pressed their knees together, and they were gripping each other’s hands. It was a cold night, and their covers didn’t provide enough warmth.

  Isla was so close that her breath warmed Zeisha’s face. “When I dream about the daytime, you’re in those dreams. But then I wake up, and I only remember a little bit. I think you’re short, like me.” Isla’s voice held a smile. “But . . . curvier?”

  Zeisha laughed softly. “Yeah, I do have curves. Your hair is straight, right? And long?”

  “Right. And yours—is it curly?”

  “Yes.”

  In the long silence that followed, Zeisha wondered if Isla had fallen asleep sitting up. They wanted to stay awake at night, the one time their minds were clear, but their little-remembered daytime activities exhausted them. She squeezed Isla’s hand gently. Isla responded by drawing her into a tight hug.

  Zeisha swallowed against rising emotion. Every night, she craved the touch of people she loved. Her parents, her brothers, Krey. Oh, Krey. Please come find me.

  Isla’s body started shaking. When Zeisha realized her friend was crying, a loud sob burst from her own mouth.