The port of Vetranta carried that persistent smell of salt and rust, a scent neither storms nor cargoes of citrus could mask. The cranes creaked like arthritic giants, and containers stacked into colorful walls, metal labyrinths where one could easily be lost. The sky, still heavy with memories of the feather rain, seemed to wait for a heavier sequel.
I had come down there at dusk, guided by Fiora’s notebook. A page had opened on its own, revealing a sketch of the old docks, annotated: where the sea signs its contracts. The notebook needed no further detail—I knew where to go. Dock 17, restricted zone, guarded by watchmen whose uniforms smelled more of purchased loyalty than honor.
The man I was to meet was already famous in whispers. Poseidon. Not the thundering god of epics, but a modern shipowner: suit perfectly tailored, watch gleaming like the ocean, gray hair frosted with salt. His smile, wide and radiant, belonged to those who sign contracts the way others bless prayers.
He welcomed me as if I had always been expected.
“Inspector Serra. At last. You’ve found the way.”
His voice rolled like a calm swell, but with that latent power that could break a seawall. He invited me to walk along the containers. Our footsteps echoed on the metal, accompanied by the surf.
“They say you deliver the sea itself,” I said.
He smiled.
“Not just the sea. Its source code.”
He tapped a midnight-blue container. The metal vibrated, and the sound of surf escaped, as though a wave was imprisoned inside. I stepped back instinctively. Poseidon laid his hand on the container, reassuring.
“The sea is just another contract,” he continued. “It agrees to clauses as long as the rent is paid. The gods, you see, don’t live off prayers—they live off transactions.”
I said nothing. His eyes gleamed with aquatic light, as though reflecting an invisible sun beneath our feet.
He opened a briefcase resting on a crate. Inside: no papers, no money. Damp parchments, soaked with salt, where numbers aligned like waves. He took a stylus and signed. No ink: his stroke released a fine foam that evaporated instantly.
“Every contract is signed in salt,” he said. “It’s the only currency the sea respects.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Fiora’s notebook vibrated in my pocket. Its pages parted on their own, revealing an annotation I had never seen: Never sign in salt. Every grain weighs a memory.
I snapped the notebook shut. Poseidon looked at me with his calm smile.
“You’ve read Fiora, haven’t you?” he asked.
He spoke her name as though she were an old lover or a respected rival. I understood then—he knew. The gods knew Fiora. Perhaps they had even feared her.
We walked on. The wind rose, carrying a strange, metallic tang. At the end of the dock, another container stood isolated, circled with runes. Poseidon laid his hand on it. The steel trembled. A growl rose, then the pure roar of the ocean in fury, as if the entire Pacific were caged inside.
“This one,” Poseidon said with a flash of pride, “doesn’t hold goods. It holds a sea. A compact sea, ready to be deployed wherever I choose. A rival city, an arrogant colony, a desert longing to become fertile. I open it, and the tide answers.”
I stared at him, incredulous.
“You store oceans the way others store grain?”
“I store the memory of water. And water always remembers who called it.”
He made a discreet gesture. Two dockers approached—robust silhouettes, but their gait was too fluid, like waves walking on two legs. Their eyes gleamed with phosphorescence. Not men. Fragments of sea disguised as humans.
Poseidon went on, as though it were a mere formality.
“You’re investigating the feathers, Inspector. Know this: they were only a foretaste. The feathers belong to the sky. But water… water wants its revenge.”
He leaned closer, and I felt on my skin the dampness of his breath, as if the mist had turned to breath.
“Tonight, the sea will sign. And when the sea signs, cities drown or prosper. It’s for you to decide in which column Vetranta will appear.”
I stepped back, but his liquid dockers had already moved to block my path. The notebook burned in my pocket, almost painful. A page opened on its own, showing a symbol: a lighthouse, a treble clef, a spiral. Beneath, a line: Do not yield to salt. Salt erases.
Poseidon waited for my answer. Behind him, the container trembled, ready to burst, as though an entire tide strained for release. And above us, the night vibrated with the memory of feathers still hanging in the air.
16 PARICIPANTS .
