Chapter 1

From the records of the ship's logs: «From a distant, mariners always saw the shrouded in fog Black Cliff, as an ominous place, hovering above the earth in gloomy clouds.

The captains kept their ships away from this damned cliff, fearing to run into prickly reefs and die before they wake from the terrifying collision. There were rumours that the Black Cliff has always been the refuge of the sea sorceress, however, no one has seen her for many years, and talks about her still continue to roam the lands of Sorfmarán. Local old-timers still remembered the sorceress's order: "When taking gifts from the sea, express gratitude and do not offend the dark waters with the guts of the dead."

For this reason, fishermen kept boats with nets away from the water, cleaned the catch on land, and burned the remains in the fire, so as not to anger the witch and her pets — sea monsters lurking in the northern waters. After all, the sea could not only take away earnings and life from the most negligent, but also curse them. The nature turned its back on people for disrespect, depriving them of grace."

Umbra

When Erida[1] was informed of Nocté's[2] divorce, she nickered, and her loud laughter continued  for so long that the servants began to look at their mistress in fear. It was the first ever time she laughed. The Queen was satisfied and joyful, because her predictions came true: the wayward sister embarked on the path of loneliness, and the cherished happiness of little Nocté turned into grief.

“No one will comfort her, no one will hug her, she is completely alone,” Erida thought of her younger sister.  “It serves you right, you finally got what you deserved,” the Queen repeated, sitting on the coral throne. Sunlight that filtered through the translucent dome-ceiling made the scales covering Erida's body sparkle.

“What can I do for you, my Queen?” A black-haired newt swam up to her. Muscles was moving under his pale blue skin. His hair was streaked with gray, and his midnight-blue eyes were fixed on the mermaid.

“The master of the northern borders, Ereb[3]. You are the closest to live to the Black Cliff. Let one of your sons keep a watch there and send me words about the exile every day.”

Sometimes thoughts of Nocté made Erida's cold heart freeze and then the Queen clutched her trident and whispered, “You'll never come back here, I won't let you.” Erida didn’t seek dates with Nocté, did not try to help her. The enchantment of a sea sorceress couldn’t be removed, and the mermaid knew it perfectly as well as she knew about her own duty to the underwater people.

The Queen should be an example for everyone. If she allowed the traitor to return to her heart, the newts of the Coral Council would doubt the wisdom and strength of their mistress.

In Umbra, a heir's gender didn’t matter. After the death of her father, even when the trident was already in her hands, the unrest in front of those who did not expect to see her on the throne did not leave Erida. Ill-wishers secretly hoped that the ancient artifacts – the crown and the trident – would incinerate the chosen one, but it didn’t happen. Erida ruled harshly, imperiously, but fairly. She exiled all the disaffected ones to the northern borders, where dangerous and ancient monsters lived in the darkest corners of the deep sea. One fin of an unprecedented monster could cover the coral capital with a shadow or completely erase it from the seabed. Thanks to Erida's mother, the warriors of the northern borders learned to cope with the creatures. However, if Erida stumbles in the governing, she will suffer death just like her mother.

“A watch nearby the exile’s castle?” Ereb was taken aback, putting the Queen off her reverie.

That wasn't the assignment he wanted for himself or his offsprings. The newt bared his teeth instinctively, but Erida fastened her blackened eyes upon him, sticking out the needles of a translucent fin behind her back. Scarlet flashes of veins ran along the base of the trident. The artifact became red-hot in her hand. The weapon as well as the crown chose its bearer, and would scorch an unworthy.

The mermaid shifted her gaze to Ereb's forearm with the traitor's mark burned into it with a trident.

“It’s a work with your own kind,” Erida smiled.

The newt got his mark because he ciuldn't protect the late Queen Adamanda[4]. During the northern borders inspection, Erida's mother with guards fell into a nest of steins. The poison from the mutated Cyaneas’[5] tentacles quickly spread through a body, causing the flesh to ice over. The cavalry was late. Ereb, the only survivor, brought the king a frozen piece of Adamanda’s fin. Father wore it on a chain right until his death and was buried with it in a throat of submarine volcano.

Ereb and his family were banished to the northen borders and allowed to return only when Erida became queen. The newt had done his best and was hoping that his sons would have a glorious fate.

“Be grateful and demand nothing more. This task is a child's play. I see you were hoping I would let you near the affairs of state or the castle of the human king?” she laughed again and tapped her trident on the foot of the throne. In its darkness a pair of yellowish eyes suddenly glittered. Black moray eels swam into the light, wrapped themselves around Erida's tail, rubbed their elongated muzzles against it and turned to Ereb.

The newt clenthed his teeth because of the sea sorceress’s – Erida’s and her sisters' aunt – pets. Their aunt helped the youngest princesses to leave Umbra and put a spell on tail to be legs. No one knew if the old beast was alive or if the abyss had swallowed up her remains. People saw sea foam and never know that all these are pieces of dead newts and mermaids.

“I’m grateful you let some of my sons guard the southern waters in shifts. And I'll stay where I'm supposed to,” muttered Ereb, bowing his head.

They were alone in the throne hall. But even if he wanted to attack her, he would lose. While the trident was with Erida, the mermaid was secured. Newt wouldn’t take risks for the sake of pride. There, behind the coral doors, his two sons were waiting for him, and the third one was about to return from the southern waters.

“Send them to the patrol as soon as possible, and return to the borders yourself and do not show up until I summon you.”

“Yes, your Majesty,” Ereb pressed his palm to his chest, touching a few staring scales over the old scar from the steins’ tentacles, and suppressing a painful spasm bowed.

Erida was watching his limbs with translucent fins as he was going away. When the door closed firmly, letting in a series of bubbles, the Queen wearily closed her eyes.

Almost every inhabitant of Umbra was born with a fish tail. And only those who lived near the northern borders started mutating for unknown reasons. Newts tails were turning into two-legged ones, and looked just like Ereb, his sons and guards. Of course it was causing rejection from their kinsmen. And there were rumours, that such changes led to infertility. The bodies of newts stopped producing spirita, and the bodies of mermaids rejected the substance that created pearls, and those eggs couldn’t be attached to ф mermaid’s belly. Pregnant residents could be recognized by the similarity of a necklace that they wore on their hips or over their navel. Eventually, a pearl, or even two or three began to grow, until the head of the fetus peeked through a perlaceous protective shell. At a designated date, the pearl was cut from a mermaid's belly and cracked with a dagger forged in the depths of the submarine volcano. Only such a strong weapon could break the protective shell and let new life out. This is the way Erida, her sisters and all the inhabitants of Umbra were born.

The moray eels swam up to the Queen's free hand, and she started petting each one on their long slimy body, whispering, “Auntie, your lessons left their mark.” The mermaid was the only living soul remembering the sorceress with good words.

When Adamanda had gone, her father locked himself in his chambers for long, entrusting the affairs to the advisers, over whom Erida took patronage and, until the king came to senses, secretly ruled Umbra – her aunt had thought her well.

“I don’t blame you for Nocté. She paid the price for her naivety and curiosity. But, if you are still breathing, keep out of my sight…” The yellow irises of the moray eels flashed unkindly, and the pets disappeared under the throne.

* * *

The Black Cliff

From the window of the castle everyone could see a cliff with visible wings of a mill. A gust of wind whirled them with a rustle. Nearby, soft woolen sheep peeked out of the thick, tall grass. Nocté learned from her maid Agnes that the mill is owned by one old man. Once he was unluck –the sea rejected him. However, he couldn't part with the abyss, so built a house over it and began to grind flour, raise sheep and sell wool. Nocté saw his silhouette from the window, but never approached, trying not to go far from the castle as if she was afraid of losing an already fragile connection with the force of nature. The sun, breaking through the gaps in the rain clouds, was illuminating the mill, but above the Black Cliff it was still a rainstorm. It drummed deafeningly on the tiles and flowed down noisily.

A thread of light touched a pale female hand lying on a window sill, but it wasn’t enough to warm her cold mermaid-like skin. Clouds was growing thinner gradually drifting apart and showing parts of a clear sky like someone splashed it with water to wash all the dark colours away.

Nocté saw fishermen who pulling a boat out of raging water. Moving their legs quickly, the men were pulling the salty, seaweed-covered ropes until the waves stopped licking the stern. When they placed the boat under a handmade shed, they lit a small fire and settled around to get warm.

The flame reluctantly flared up, flashing sparks between the decayed boards and wet branches. Nocté even caught the smell of fried shrimps, but it didn’t provoke her appetite. She stopped eating properly quite a while. Even her favourite peaches she considered as a delicacy during her marriage didn’t attract her. Now the orange-red fruits were lying on a plate next to a silver cup filled with water and emanated a light floral aroma. The young woman drank a lot, causing the maid dissatisfaction.

Gulls cries made Nocté shudder. White-winged birds flew past the window, rushing to the cliff with the mill, where they built their nests.

On foggy days, cliff wasn’t visible at all. Closer to the cliff, the sand was taken over by wide stone slabs, lined with black veins of sinkholes, where small crabs and clams caught on seaweed huddled. At high tide, the stones were hidden under the water, and at low tide it was possible to find partially opened shells with pearls.

A breeze slid through the window, hit Nocté's cheek with raindrops and stirred the pages of the diary that was lying on her table. The young woman looked at the paper she had written over the night and frowned, remembering every word. What or to whom can a mute tell stories? Only to the sea — with her touches, and paper – with ink.

“Many people believe in the happy ending to the story of the little mermaid and her prince, but no one knows what happened after.

I did marry and became a queen of Sorfmarán, but couldn't give an heir to my husband. The king with a legitimate wife who is unable to continue his ancestry.

Over the next two years all my pregnancies ended in miscarriages and surgeries. And the royal healer expressed his fears to my husband about my inability to child-bearing. It was foolish to hope that, earning legs by sorcery, I would be able to become a full-fledged human female. The body rejected a fetus over and over again, until the healer restricted trying. On that day, my fate was predetermined.

I moved away from the royal court, finding myself in a small Black Cliff Castle, where I once met my love. My husband told me to improve my health with sea air, walks, and follow all the healer's prescriptions in order to return and give the long-awaited baby. As if I didn't have enough sea or air in the palace!

For the first two months in exile, I hoped that my husband would step aside from business for a while and be able to visit me, soothe me. Hope faded in the sixth month, and in the seventh a messenger delivered me divorce papers. After the signing, I stopped thinking about the king, I didn't even mention his name in my own thoughts.

The monarch and his feelings do not belong to each other. What kind of love can we talk about? The generosity of the former spouse knew no bounds. He left me the Black Cliff, a few servants who were with me before our marriage, and a lifetime support.

News reaches the Black Cliff very slowly, but such a bright event could not be avoided by human rumour: on the day when the messenger returned to the capital with divorce papers, the king married for the second time, and his new wife was already pregnant.

I didn't need to know the details. I felt she would give Sorfmarán the crown prince, and I would die here — childless, lonely, unable to return to the dark depths of Umbra.”

At night, the starry sky lures with its vastness, and rolling on the sandy and rocky shore waves whisper consolations. On fine days, during a calm, the abyss is silent, and I have to wonder what it wants to tell me. No storm passed without my presence. Not being afraid of cold and diseases, I stand in the water brushed by the wind that piercing my body, when the rain washes the salty drops from my face and carries them into the sea water. Splashes cool my palms, hot from a fever, until the darkness plunges me into its embrace. I spend several days in a feverish delirium and return to the water again. Old Agnes grumbles, forbids me to go to the sea, but doesn’t dare to stand in the way when my feet carries me to my native element. Sometimes it seems to me I see the coral towers of Umbra. Somewhere out there, in the depths, Erida rules. My father's heart could not stand my flight to people. The sea people turned against me. I am a traitor, a monster worse than those that the newts imprisoned on the northern border. Only the sea didn’t leave its stray daughter, continuing to greet her with storms and lull her to sleep with peacefully rolling waves. If only I could go home... be my old self."

[1] Erida (fighting, quarrel, rivalry) — is the Greek goddess of strife and discord.

[2] Nocté, Nyx (night) — is the Greek goddess (or personification) of the night.

[3] Ereb (darkness, gloom) — representing the personification of darkness in Greek mythology.

[4] Adamas (from ancient Greek - "irresistible") is a mythical metal that served as material for the tools of the gods. Adamas is the ancient name for a diamond

[5] Cyanea capillata — a species of Scyphozoa, discophoran class.