Chapter 3

“This is smaller than what I imagined,” Claris remarked as the three friends hustled onto the Jalanda Market, the market that linked the train station to the docks. Nobody really used boats or ships to get around Dyia, since anyone could just use a teleportal or Solark.

                  The Jalanda Market—to be fair—was two neat rows of yellow and orange lamps and stalls that had cloth roofs. It wasn’t that tightly packed though—there was space for ten large men to walk between each stall.

                  The magipeople born in Jalanda had pale white skin, with ebony black hair that was usually tied into intricate braids or hairstyles. Most of the children that came from Jalanda had two ‘i’s in their names.

                  A young girl selling charms at a memento stall handed out advertising scroll to Annice as she walked past. “Wait, you have an ice charm?” she asked the girl.

                  The girl nodded. “All our products are a hundred percent authentic.” Annice spent two precious minutes buying the ice charm, which was just a locket filled with snow, that had ice crusting half of it.

                  “What? Could be useful,” Annice said as she tucked the charm in her pocket. The market was really short, and anyone from the train station could see the planked docks already. It was nighttime, since the Sandy Seafoam beach was in the western part of Skysun, while the Jalanda was in the east, and the train trip had taken almost eleven hours.

                  Acacia stretched her sore legs, breathing in a mouthful of sea-scented air. “What are we doing here? My parents could be in danger right now,” she huffed, even though it was a far stretch. Two adults, lost at sea, missing for three years without a trace because there had been no grandparents to worry, and Acacia hadn’t even known until Mr Claus told her this afternoon . . .. There was a chance they were already dead.

                  Which led to the bigger question—why had the Dyian authorities taken three years after her parent’s disappearance to uncover their possible location, and not found out a little sooner? The bits and pieces of information swam around in Acacia’s mind, and she decided to ignore them, mentally reminding herself to get Korii to investigate the incident.

                  A loud, blaring honk kicked her train of thought of their tracks. An enormous yacht docked beside the docks, and a stream of Dyians (some of the Sky species, the land, and the underwater species) rushed to clamber down the rope ladder, filling the market with buzzing chatter and noise. The stallholders perked up with their new customers and set to business.

                  The big, red letters on the side of the yacht spelled out the words, THE HOLIDAY YACHT

                  “Come on,” Claris started to climb up the ladder. Acacia took a deep breath to steel her nerves, assuring herself that she was part of the Rebel-Lion now, under the protection of the Guardians, and stepped onto the first step.

                  The yacht was bigger than Acacia had imagined, with sliding glass doors, restaurants, sleeping rooms, and even a ball room. To be fair, all the restaurents were just teleportals with the restaurant name and menu above and beside the teleportal respectively.

                  The ballroom was also to be reached by a teleportal, and the sleeping rooms were the only rooms inside the yacht in the first place. It was all very luxurious, but Acacia couldn’t relax like Claris and the other tourists.

                  She was too distracted by the announcement board. The last stop for the Holiday Yacht is a loop-de-loop around the underwater city, Sirenade.