Chapter 1: Crimson City

In the Crimson City, the night air was never cold. The stars illuminated the skies, the streets were decorated with lanterns that lighted up anyone’s path through the city. Even though the streets were sand and the houses built of brown, muddy clay, the people were happy. It didn’t remind them of the way the land was before"how it was bursting with green life (forests, streams"water was even in abundance then and crops of tropical fruit flourished) that was so beautiful people came just to see"but the people still accepted that their country of Cairo would never be the land that it once was. They were content with the magic that the People of Fire had taught them, even if it had lead to the Great Fire that decimated the lands until it was a whole continent of desert.

Everyone born in Cairo knew Fire magic. It was born in their blood. Even the little children who giggled as they ran down the streets were able to easily light up the lanterns that had lost their flames. The children were too busy laughing to notice the man standing in the middle of the road before they ran straight into him. His golden eyes stared down at them like a hawk looking at its prey. They frowned before backing up and apologizing, running away as fast as their legs would take them.

The boy’s name was Cairo. While still young, he stood tall and proud. He placed a hand on his hip, tilting his head back to get a glimpse of the midnight sky. Today there were no stars to illuminate the sky, so the only source of light were the small lanterns hung every few feet through the streets. They were such small flames too that they barely gave off any light. He waved his hand in front of one. Inside the lantern, the light grew quite a bit in size until it was big enough to light a whole section of the street. Cairo nodded to himself content with his work. After all, he was the child protegee of fire magic; there were only a few people who could say they had better talent at fire magic than Cairo did, and he had the pleasure (though some could say otherwise) of only knowing one of them.

“Remind me again why we’re here?” 

Another male stepped beside Cairo. He was shorter than him by a few inches, light brown hair that almost looked orange in the light of the flickering lantern flames. A girl stood beside him, leaning against one of the small clay houses. Her eyes were a blank slate that held nothing in them as she stared at the ground. She didn’t make any move to join in on the conversation, and when Cario started to walk again, she was quickly at his side easily matching his pace. They were alone in the middle of the night.

“I’ve already told you about ten times already,” Cairo said, a slight huff in his irritated voice. “If you’d actually listen to me once in awhile, Cane, I’m sure you’d know by now. I’ll say it again, though: I’m looking for a Kleptos card that I think is here.” 

“And where exactly in this poor slum city are we going to find a Kleptos card?” he asked. 

Cairo only pointed to the girl right next to him. “I found Aerie on a deserted street down south. You never know where you can find rare gems, though usually it’s in unexpected places.” 

“Unexpected…” Cane’s eyes wandered around his surroundings. “You can sure say that. I doubt these people even know what a Kleptos is.” 

“Right here.” Cairo knocked one of his knuckles on some idents on a clay house. “They’re marks from a Kleptos fight. Even slums like these can have low level Kleptos; they’re in abundance, after all. For slums this place isn’t even bad.” 

“They’re prospering from the Reformation, I guess.” 

“Some places aren’t, some are hit that much harder. The Government is still relatively new and hasn’t made even a scratch of impact that the old Monarch made. I doubt it’s easy to go from controlling everything to controlling only a small portion of that.”

Cane shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I mean, we’re still alive and breathing, so they’re doing at least something right (not that I’m a fan of the Government, but I think at least a little credit is deserved. After that they’re still all greedy scumbags who only look out for themselves). Still, it’s not like we’re all dead. It could have happened! With the way the Monarch was going out of control...” Cane caught the quick glance Cairo had given him. “Not like I would know because the Monarch was before I was born, it’s just stories I’ve been told, but they’re still people who were alive from the old Monarch, right?” 

“I guess.” 

“Then… well, anyway, where are we going?” 

“We’re already here,” Cairo said, glancing to his left at the decently larger clay house beside him.

Before Cane had a chance to respond, the whole ground under the city rumbled. The houses shook enough that some of them even cracked. All around the city, the sky was bursting with flames that rose higher and higher by the second. Each ruby flame that reached and wiggled upward looked like they wanted to even consume the sky in their rage. People were running out of their houses, screams were sounding off left and right into the once silent night. Cane was shoved against the wall of the house as people desperately ran past him. The streets were no longer deserted. Everyone who lived there was up and trying desperately to find their friends and family before they escaped"some weren’t so keen on the idea and fled by themselves like it was every man for himself, some cried as they prayed on their knees for some higher entity to have mercy on them and save their soul. Cairo turned toward Aerie, a solid look on his face as he grabbed Cane’s arm, shoving him towards her. His grip was solid and Cane flinched as more pressure was applied.

“Take Cane and get out of here,” he ordered. “I need to make sure that there’s no card here. I’ll be right behind you guys as soon as I check, I promise.”

Aerie nodded, taking Cane’s arm from Cairo, but he easily shrugged her off. “I will not. You’re coming with us. There’s no cards here, and if you believe that, you’re stupid as all hell. Besides that, there’s no reason to stay here and risk your life while the whole city’s burning to the ground!” 

Something flickered behind Cairo’s eyes, but before Cane could say anything, Cairo nodded, sticking his hands into his pockets. “Alright. I’ll be right behind you.” 

Without a triumphant humph, Cane turned around and ran. The air was already starting to turn black from the smoke, causing a wave of coughs to start as the people ran through it. There was ash that fell from the sky as possessions from inside the houses burnt and flew away into the night air. Some were unlucky enough to have the ash fall on them, burn through their skimpy rags, and into their flesh. They all howled into the night like wolfs to the moon. 

With a quick spin of her feet, Aerie grabbed Cane’s arm and pushed him into a dark alleyway between two rather large clay houses. Besides the black soot on her face from the smoke, she looked fine, without a trace of fatigue on her. Cane, on the other hand, was gasping her dear life as he stopped, resting his hands on his bent knees. His forehead was dripping black sweat from running and the intense heat of the fire, and the rest of his body was sticky with the black soot as the sweat made it stick to his body like glue. Even wiping his forehead did nothing, only resulting in smudging it more. Cane’s eyes lit up as he spun himself around. He winced as a hand flew to his ribs where he’d been pushed by someone earlier. His eyes scanned around the alley they were in until they settled back to Aerie.

“Where is he?!” Cane screamed, panic written all over his face. He could barely talk and his voice cracked every third word from the smoke he was inhaling, making him cough even worse. “You’ve got to be kidding me! We lost him! I knew he’d go back there to check to make sure there weren’t any cards, even though I told him there weren’t any. He’s so stupid! We’ll never find him like this now. He’s lost for good!” 

“He’s here somewhere,” Aerie said, her voice calm like she was talking about the weather. “We should keep moving or the fire will catch up to us.” 

Even in the fire, her face still looked like a perfect creation. The light from the flames flickered across her porcelain face that Cane had never seen show any emotion. It was always a look of a blank slate. Her eyes that looked like a black void in the night showed nothing at all either. No one could tell what she was thinking, and sometimes Cane wondered if she ever thought at all"she certainly had no personal opinions, or any for that matter; she followed Cairo, only doing what he told her to do, nothing more, nothing less. Cane had thought she was like his living doll many times, but never said anything. He knew better than to say something offensive about Aerie. To Cairo, she was someone he cared about deeply, but Cane could never quite piece together their relationship.

His eyes grew wide as he watched the flames rise all around them. Inside of him, his lungs were crying out in pain from how much smoke he was inhaling. He had to fight the urge to stop breathing altogether.

“The fire’s already here! Can’t you see that?!” He slammed his fist against one of the walls, a small crack forming around his fist. “We’re dead and so is Cario.” 

“If Cairo doesn't make it, then he doesn’t make it. He gave me orders to get you out of here, and without or without him, I need to get you out of here to somewhere safe.” Aerie’s hard eyes stared down at Cane as he crouched on his knees. “We both know that every order he gives me could be his last. What we do is dangerous. They’re risks involved, but we still do it because that’s what we need to do. What I need to do now is follow my orders and get you out of here.”

He wiped the black soot off his mouth, spitting out the bit that got into his mouth. “I’m going back.” 
“
No.”

It was a simple one word answer, but the ferocity of the word sent shivers down Cane’s spine. She was telling him she was more powerful than him. Within a split second, Aerie was right next to Cane. She grabbed his arm, pulling him against her. Her grip was iron tight, sending shots of pain up and down Cane’s arm. He winced, crying out in pain, but she disregarded his complaints as she marched forward, dragging him along with her.

“Let me go, Aerie!” he shouted. Just like his shouts of pain, she disregarded them. “He’s your master! At least care a little bit!” 

This time Aerie stopped dead in her tracks so fast that Cane rammed into her back. Even with his full weight pushed against her, she didn't’ budge a bit. Her eyes slid to him. “He’s not my master; he’s my Pyro. I’m not a slave to be ordered around; I’m a living thing just like you that can make decisions on my own, and I say we leave with or without Cairo.”

Aerie suddenly snapped her head up. With the grace of a ballerina, she  pushed Cane and herself quickly back. In front of them, Cairo landed, squatting until his butt almost hit the ground, with a large thump. He stood up, giving each leg a shake, a slight grimace on his face. Both him and Aerie’s bodies tensed for a second before Cairo jumped on Aerie and Cane, sending them flying to the ground underneath him, as a giant chunk of the building behind them broke off. It was still burning as it wedged itself between the remainder of the two houses.

“Don’t worry,” Cairo said, brushing his hands against each other. “I have things I intend to get done, so this situation isn’t anything worth freaking out over. If you trust me in the least bit, you’ll agree with me that I can get us out of this. But”"Cairo glanced at the burning debris in front of them that blocked the exit off"“we’re going to need to find a new way out. This one’s blocked.”

“Great,” Cane muttered, taking Cairo’s hand as he helped him up. “I’m stuck in a burning city, Aerie hates me, and I'm covered in layers of nasty soot.” 

“Tell me about it,” Cairo said, as he tried to wipe a spot off of his almost black face, but the gesture only made the soot smear worse with his sweat.

Fire erupted behind them, sparks littering in the alleyway as waves of flames flickered around the edges of the houses. They all took a step backward until their backs were greeted with the familiar sense of heat. Cane screamed, his hands grabbing chunks of his hair.

“We’re dead!” Cane went into frantics. “That’s it, we’re dead! Dead as a doorknob. No more adventures for me. Thanks for raising me, mom, but sorry I made the worst decision of my life to travel with this lunatic. You’re a great mom, really, but I think you should have"” 

To quiet the boy, Aerie covered his mouth with one of her hands, while with her other hand, she pressed one of her fingers against her lips. She placed a hand on his back, rubbing soft circles behind his beating heart, instructing him on how to breath in order not to have a panic attack. He calmed his breathing down by taking slow breaths in and out, relaxing against Aerie’s shoulder as she continued to rub circles on his back. 

“I’m not letting us die.” 

Cairo pulled out a playing card. It was red. A blood red border with a medium crimson color fill, an intricate drawing of a some kind of ancient deity was etched in a light red, glowing design. He brought the card up to his lips as Aerie stepped away from Cane. 

“Red card.” 

Aerie eyes flashed red before she jumped up into the air. Cane leaned back, still awestruck even though he’d seen it many times before. Her shoulder length, semi-straight grey hair streaked with red and orange as it pulled itself up into two side ponytails that curled together to look like flames shooting out of her head. The rest of her hair layered itself into a very short flat cut that surrounded her head. Her red flame patterned robe fluttered around her legs with the force of the jump. Flames erupted from her hands, her eyes deadlocked with the massive chunk of debris that rested right in front of them. 

“Destroy it.”

Without a second of hesitation, the flames in Aerie’s hand surged forward. They flew straight ahead into the massive chunk of debris, shattering the block of clay into hundreds of black smoldering pieces that now littered the ground. Both Cairo and Cane had to dodge pieces that flew at them, some still managing to slice through parts of the skin on their arms and faces.

The first one to jump to their feet was Cairo, who quickly afterwards made his way over to Cane to pull him to his feet. While Cairo guided Cane through the rest of the alley, he couldn’t help feeling like a newborn fawn just learning how to walk. His legs were shaking and made him occasionally trip. Cairo was the one who would catch him under the armpits and call to Aerie to slow down when he tipped. It was easy to see he was losing will to continue on. Absorbed in his own world of pain, he never realized Cairo was almost as bad as he was. Even still, Cairo easily picked Cane up, carrying him bridal style while he marched forward through the thick smoke. 

“Just hold your breath,” he spit out as he rounded the corner of the alley. “We’re almost out.” 

With little conscious left, Cane nodded, moving his head closer to Cairo’s chest. He went limp against Cairo, who could only suspect he lost consciousness. Slamming against a wall, Cairo took a deep breath followed by a cough, adjusting his grip on Cane before he started running. 

Another rumble shook the city and Cairo knew that the place wouldn’t hold much longer. It didn’t matter, though, as he saw the city walls and knew that beyond them was saftey. Giving another quick order to Aerie, he kept moving as she burst a hole through the wall. As they stepped outside, one last rumble shook the city before it started to collapse into pieces. Cairo looked back for a split second. His heart reached out to the city that was going to be nothing more than a pile of burnt rubble, but that was nothing new. This was Cairo after all, and there were many places that were just like this"lost in both the wind and time. He turned back around and continued walking.