yasinovel Chapter 205: PORT OF SANDS (3)
Chapter 205: PORT OF SANDS (3)
The sailor considered this.
"No one who has entered the Trench with an active Fragment has come out the same." A pause.
"I don’t mean they died. I mean something changes. I don’t know exactly what because no one who has lived through it describes it the same way."
Jessica was taking notes nonstop.
Maya as well — she had taken out her notebook the second the sailor mentioned the Trench and had filled three pages of notes.
Maya bit her pen for a moment, scanning her own scribbles. "Changes" and "not the same" were underlined three times each.
"And when do they notice the change?" she asked without looking up.
"When they leave? Hours later?"
The sailor shrugged. "Depends on the person."
She noted that too.
Raven looked at Maya. Then at Jessica.
"They’re the same person," said Raven quietly.
Maya looked up.
"Excuse me?"
"Jessica is a version of you, but less boring."
Jessica kept writing without looking up.
"Technically, I also write everything down," said Jessica. "The difference is that I do it without the emotional component of needing maps to feel like I control the environment."
Raven smiled with half her face. "That’s exactly what a boring version of Maya would say."
Maya looked at her.
"I don’t need maps to—"
"You bought four today," said Kira from the other side of the table.
"That’s different."
"How is it different?" asked Raven.
"Because maps are objective information and Jessica’s notes are—"
"Also objective information," said Jessica.
"—information about things that have already happened and don’t change the outcome."
"Maps don’t change the outcome either," said Kira. "They only guide."
Maya opened her mouth.
She closed it.
"I can be fun too," said Maya.
Silence at the table.
"And spontaneous," added Maya.
Kira rested her cheek on her hand. "That’s not spontaneous. That’s announcing you’re going to be spontaneous."
"It’s still an attempt," replied Maya.
More silence.
"The point is that we’re not the same person."
"I didn’t say you were the same person," said Raven. "I said Jessica is a version of you, but less boring."
"Which implies that I am the less interesting version," said Maya.
"Yes."
Maya processed that.
"Good. That’s good."
Jessica kept writing. At some point in the last two minutes, she had filled half a page about the conversation in addition to the notes about the Trench.
Beneath everything she wrote: *"Maya needs external validation. Raven gives it effortlessly. Analyze dynamic."*
---
The sailor was looking at them with the expression of someone who had come to tell a story and found himself in a play.
"Is there anything else about the Trench?" asked Seraph from the end of the table.
The sailor returned to the topic.
"The energy lasts while you’re inside. As soon as you leave, it returns to normal." A pause.
"The problem is that inside, the energy also amplifies the corruption of the Fragments. If you go in with the power active and without control—"
"Understood," said Seraph.
The sailor looked at them one by one.
"How many Fragments are you carrying?"
No one answered.
"You’re carrying more than one," said the sailor. "It shows." He stood up. "Good voyage." He left a coin on the table for his drink and left without looking back.
Raven observed the coin. "He was a sailor, but he paid with land currency. No one in a port carries land currency if they expect to stay."
Kira nodded. "Either he’s not going back to sea, or he never planned to return."
---
Emily looked at Alex.
Alex was looking at the door through which the sailor had left.
"Are you thinking about the Trench?"
"I’m thinking Seraph’s training has a deadline before we get there." Alex. "If the energy amplifies corruption—"
"Don’t go in with the Fragment active, and there’s nothing to amplify," said Seraph from her end.
"And if there’s a fight inside?"
"Then train faster."
Alex looked at his food.
Grim in the chair next to him — a whole chair for the 80cm form — with his crimson flames looking at the fried fish on Alex’s plate.
**"Master."**
"You can’t eat."
**"I know."** His flames on the fish. **"What does it smell like?"**
"Like fried fish."
"Is it good?"
"It’s like the one at Coral Port or the Ishi hot springs."
**"Good."** A pause. **"Describe it to me."**
Kira, who had been quiet since the conversation about Maya and Jessica, looked up.
"Grim wants you to describe the food to him?"
"Apparently."
"Why?"
Alex looked at Grim.
**"Because if I can’t taste it,"** said Grim with the cadence of someone explaining something that should be obvious, **"the next best thing is to hear what it’s like."**
Kira leaned forward slightly. **"And does that work? Hearing the description?"**
**"No,"** admitted Grim. **"But it’s less bad than having nothing."**
The table was silent for a moment.
"It’s crispy on the outside," said Emily. "Soft on the inside. Salty. With something that tastes like southern spices."
**"Is it better than dungeon creature meat?"**
"There’s no comparison."
**"Interesting."** Grim processed that. **"So the ocean also has better food."**
"Technically the food comes from ocean creatures, yes."
**"Another point in favor of the ocean."**
---
[Port — 3:45 PM]
The group scattered around the port again before returning to the boat.
Emily and Alex alone for the first time that day — the rest of the team at different points in the market, Max on the boat, Viktor checking supplies.
They walked without a specific direction.
"Did you see the posters?" asked Emily quietly.
Alex had seen the posters.
Four of them in the port’s main sector — the kind of thick paper the Temple used for official notifications, with the group’s photos and the bounties in large letters.
The photos were from old files — Alex with his hair still dark, the girls in their old outfits.
Similar enough that someone looking for them might recognize them. Not obvious enough that someone not looking for them would notice them on a chaotic street.
Emily stopped in front of one, pretending to be interested in a merchant ship advertisement stuck beside it. "Your bounty is higher than mine."
Alex didn’t look at the poster.
"It always is."
"Doesn’t it bother you?"
"It would bother me if it were lower."
"I saw them."
"No one has looked at us."
"No one in this port wants the trouble that comes with collecting that bounty." Alex.
"They’re sea hunters. They’ve already calculated that the price in trouble outweighs the price in gold."
"What if there’s someone who didn’t make that calculation?"
Alex looked at the port.
Grim on his shoulder with his crimson flames low — in passive spiritual plane reading mode, no active alert.
"If there were anyone with real intent, Grim would read it first," Alex thought out loud.
"Not yet," said Alex.
"Not yet?"
"Not yet. The sailor at the tavern read us. He knew about the Fragments. If he knows, others know." Alex.
"But knowing and acting are different things. Here, everyone has secrets they’d rather no one report. Coexistence of mutual convenience."
Emily looked at him.
"When did you start thinking like that?"
"Probably when I got expelled from the Academy and had to learn to exist in spaces where the official rules don’t apply."
Emily didn’t answer immediately.
*Lower City,* she thought. *Before I knew him. Before the Academy, before the Fragments, before all of this.*
*There are parts of him that existed before I appeared that I will never fully know.*
*I don’t know if that bothers me or if it just seems true.*
"We’re going back to the boat at five," said Emily.
"Yes."
"So we have an hour."
Alex looked at her.
"What do you want to do?"
Emily pointed to a stall on the corner selling something that looked like ice cream but smelled of sea fruit and spices.
"Try that."
"Sea fruit ice cream?"
"The sign says it’s a local specialty."
"The sign also says it has ’magically invigorating’ properties, which are probably a lie to charge more."
"Probably." Emily. "Are you going to try it or not?"
Alex looked at the stall.
Looked at Emily.
Emily was already walking toward the stall.
"That’s a yes."
Alex followed her.
"That’s a ’I don’t want you complaining later if it tastes horrible.’"
"If it tastes horrible, you’ll complain first."
"Possibly."
"Let’s go."
---
[Boat — 5:30 PM]
The whole team was back.
Raven with her backpack full of sea creature bones.
Kira with the maritime arrows stored and the enchanted harpoon tied to the side of her backpack.
Maya with the four maps plus two ocean route books that no one had asked her to buy.
Emily with the plants and some blue still at the corner of her mouth from the sea fruit ice cream.
Alex with the same at his corner.
Seraph looked at both of them.
She said nothing. But her eyes lingered a second longer on Emily’s blue stain before moving on.
Jessica did notice and made a note. Seraph observed the stain. Didn’t ask. Didn’t say anything. That too is an answer.
---
The boat left the Port of Sands with the last light of day.
Maya at the bow with the new map spread out — the updated currents, the route to the Three Currents Trench marked.
Kira beside her without anyone asking.
"How many days to the Trench?" asked Maya.
"With the current wind — five. With the northern route that avoids the migration zone — six and a half."
"Is the extra day and a half worth it?"
"It depends on what’s in the migration zone when we get there."
Maya noted both options.
*Six days,* she thought. *Six days for Alex to train enough before entering a zone that amplifies Fragment corruption.*
*It’s not a lot of time.*
She looked at the eastern horizon.
*It’s never a lot of time for anything.*
Akari jumped onto the railing beside her and stayed there, watching the ocean with her golden eyes.
*But it’s what we have,* Maya thought.
Akari blinked once, slowly, as if agreeing. Or as if the ocean were indifferent to her. With Akari, you never knew.
The Port of Sands disappeared behind the boat.
Open ocean again.