Prologue

"Shit." A young voice cursed. The owner of the voice, a thin- malnourished almost -young man with white hair and green eyes in rags looked around, everywhere his eyes landed he saw corpses, young and old, male or female, all having various degrees of mutilation.

"Alya, you okay?" The boy asked looking panicked.

A muffled groan answered him, "I'm fine Atlas, help me out." The boy, Atlas hurried over to the voice and pulled off a few corpses revealing a beautiful young girl with white hair and blue eyes also wearing rags though she looked older than Atlas.

"Where are we?" Atlas finally had time to look around. They were locked in what looked like a cellar surrounded by corpses.

*****************

Seven hours ago

In a little dilapidated house, Atlas was hurriedly stuffing clothes into a wooden box.

"Alya, I'm ready!" He shouted as he stuffed a necklace with a large purple gem on it's string.

"Me too!" A reply came soon. Atlas stepped out of his room, giving it one fond glance. He had stayed there since he was seven years old and now he was leaving it probably never to come back. Atlas nodded at Alya who was carrying a similar wooden box and had just stepped out of her room. They walked out of their house, they were the only people who lived after their parents disappeared.

"Let's go before we're late!" Alya dragged Atlas and ran out of the corner where their house was. They ran across the muddy road, they lived in the innermost part of the slums. When they're parents were still around they had built their small house from start and that was the only they had left to remember them with.

"We're here, I don't think the caravan has left yet so let's find Otto first and confirm our spot."

" 'kay."

The siblings shuffled along the long line of horse driven carriages looking lost until they saw a burly dark skinned man who seemed to be arguing with a scrawny man with shifty eyes.

" Otto!" Atlas said looking surprised, Otto was an amiable guy who wouldn't get angry for no reason.

" I don't care if you try to transfer me to another carriage but what about the others, you've already taken their money and assured them of their place here it's unreasonable to transfer them to the slave carriage not after they've paid you." Otto said angrily, the crowd that had gathered echoing their agreement.

"As I said already, it doesn't have anything to do with me. If you have any problems with the arrangement go to the head." The shifty eyed man spoke as if he was truly sorry but his little smirk gave him away.

" I damn will." Otto huffed at the other man.

"What happened?" Alya asked after the shifty man left.

" Oh, it's you kids," Otto flashed a smile before sighing. "It's the head merchant of the caravan, apparently some big shot's daughter is going to be joining us and since she's going to take on carriage all for herself, they're transferring us to the slave carriage."

Atlas frowned,"That sucks."

"I know, I'm going to speak to the head merchant." Otto headed to the head carriage of the caravan.

"He probably won't be able to do anything."

"Yeah."

The two eventually went to the last carriage at the back of the caravan. There were men, women and even children all chained to the wooden boards and with varying expressions of numbness on their faces. When they saw Atlas and Alya they looked at them apathetically for a second before turning their heads away.

Atlas and Alya sat on the outside of the carriage ignoring the bustling members of the caravan.

"Atlas, count all the money we have left." Alya suddenly said.

Atlas pulled out a leather pouch from his wooden box and counted the coins inside it. "We still have 5 silver coins and 78 coppers left. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just wanted to know." She looked distant, as if her mind had gone to a faraway place. Atlas was used to her acting this way and just nodded.

In the Eyris Continent, a hundred coppers were barely equal to a silver coin, a hundred silver coins were equal to a single gold coin and a hundred gold coins were equal to a platinum coin. It was impossible for one to use fake coins to trade as every single coin was manufactured by the Millid Empire and had a special magic imprint that was impossible to recreate.

Atlas and Alya were currently headed to the Millid Empire's capital city Rusvil. Alya had received a shady(in Atlas's words) letter inviting her to study at a prestigious school for magic capable children. The entire thing seemed shady but Alya was determined to go so Atlas had no choice but to follow her.

"How did it go?" Alya 's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. Standing in front of them was a troubled looking Otto.

"No luck. The head refused to change the order and there's nothing I said that could have changed his mind."

"Welp, you tried." Atlas said. It was inevitable anyway but that didn't stop Otto from feeling guilty. Alya and Atlas had known Otto for three years, he was their parent's friend and the only one who looked after them since their parents died. Shouts suddenly echoed around them as it seemed that the caravan was about to start moving. Atlas stood up and walked into their designated carriage carefully minding the bodies of the dead eyed slaves and somehow found an unoccupied corner and set his box down and sat on it, Alya following suit beside him.

Soon Otto and a group of about fifteen people walked into the carriage and found a place to sit down. The caravan started moving not long after and their journey has officially begun.

About four hours later, there was an explosion that blasted the carriage in front of them into pieces bringing about the smell of rotten flesh. The resulting shockwave knocked almost everyone on that carriage out.

Almost.