Chapter 4

Serpens[1] showed his scaly muzzle, opened four sapphire eyes and poked the corpse with his nose.

“Last time aquapil swam to the dead, and now serpens.” Sea serpents most often surrounded Nocté, reacting to the scent of her blood. Aquapiles, on the other hand, resembled water balls, but they changed their body, merging with water and stones and thereby becoming dangerous for unwaring sailors.

“If monsters are not disturbed, they can stay in hibernation for many years or even centuries, waking up at the command of the ruler's trident which vibrations reach the most remote corners of the sea.”

A powerful wave hit the serpent. Another newt rose threateningly from the water. He raised his hands and, controlling the water, turned it into ice needles. One spike hurt serpens' side. Uttering a cry similar to a whale, the monster slapped the water with its fin and disappeared into the abyss.

Newt shot a hateful look at Nocté sitting by the body of a fellow, and bared his teeth. Quickly swimming up to the girl and deftly climbing onto the bowl, the newt touched the belly of the dead.

“Did you do it?” Chaos wheezed, smelling the scent of female blood that was stirring his nostrils

“Of course, it’s not you. You don’t have such a strength,” he continued while calming down and examining the dead. It turned out to be one of the two-legged newts that Her Majesty had chosen as human shields to protect Imbra, the southern underwater garrison. Erida didn’t trust the people of Sorfmarán, and from year to year there were enough sea guards left in the south to respond with attack to attack.

“Forky[2], it seems you deserted from Imbra after all. You never missed a chance to give chiliarch lip, more than once left your post to swim to the shore and have fun with human women. You have been condemned and hated for many things. Hardly anyone will regret knowing that you ended up here, dead.”

Nocté grabbed the newt by the wrist and pressed his clawed hand to the place where the pearl should have been. He winced. The girl's touch caused disgust, made him wince, but the realisation that even someone like Forky was not just killed, but gutted and the pearl was taken away, made Chaos think: “Who needed this? Who is so bloodthirsty?”

The girl folded her hands in her lap and shrugged weakly. Ashy hair spilled over her chest, gray eyes were filled with black pupils, there were red cracks on her pale lips. The touch of the newt made Nocté shudder. A long-forgotten sensation spread like a chill in her chest and gave off a strange pulsation in legs. While she was a mermaid and touched her tail to the tail of a sea dweller, she experienced something similar, but more vivid, not fleeting. Looking at her legs with pity, the girl pursed up her lips and looked at the guard: black hair combed back stuck over his back and broad shoulders, numerous cuts decorated his lean body (it was forbidden to disfigure the faces of aristocratic exiles with scars).

“A sick creature. It's pointless to feed you even to monsters,” Chaos looked at the girl with an arrogant look.

Nocté saw the guard's disgust and wanted to shout out: “I didn't kill him!”, but the newt realised it himself. The girl wouldn't have had the strength to drag the dead to the bowl and disembowel. This requires cunning and strength. In addition (and this removed all suspicion from Nocté), Forky served in the south and couldn't meet his death near the Black Cliff in any way.

The girl pointed her finger at the sea and ran her hand through the air, depicting a wave.

“I’ve figured it out by myself he couldn't have come here. The borders are closed. Her Majesty has cast protective charms, and they only let the dead through. The current from the southern waters brought the corpse here, where any garbage floats.” The newt touched the tips of the cut strands of Forky with his fingernail.

“It's customary to cut off traitors' hair for a crime committed only among our people. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the work of noble guards: they have always looked at us as zeroes.”

“It's good that you're mute: I can see your mediocrity, but at least I can't hear you.” The newt pulled the dead man to him, threw him over his shoulder and dived into the black water.

Again, Nocté was left alone. The pricked finger tingled from the sea splash. The newt's palm was cold with velvety scales. From the sunlight or moonlight, they shimmered with silver.

A thin wrinkle appeared between the girl's eyebrows. She remembered that even after the death of the bearer, magic remains in the pearl.

***

Sombra

The cemetery of sunken ships that crashed on the rocks near the Black Cliff became a harbour for the renegades of the sea people.

The castle of ships stuck out like a peak above the abyss, from which air bubbles rose. There, in deep caves, ancient monsters slept soundly. Not a single marine inhabitant would have been able to swim to them: either they would have frozen in cold water or would have been devoured by the serpenses, who were hiding in their holes like gulls on the cliff, sparkling in the dark with burning eyes.

The wooden bastion of Sombra, surrounded by prickly purple corals, resembled a huge galleon with numerous spiked masts and sails flowing with water, in whose folds aquapiles liked to hide. They didn't touch the newts. Aquapiles were sliding along the fabric and merging with wood. Serpenses circled under anchors hanging over the abyss. Young ones settled on them and dozed. Beyond a ravine, pinkish fields could be seen. It was seemingly harmless, but pitted with underground tunnels with steines. Fields were the only place that Ereb watched with all care, making sure that the population of the cursed “jellyfish” did not exceed the permissible level.

When he got drunk on ink wine extracted by guards from the purified ink of cuttlefish, he began to smash the tunnels of steins with a whip from the tails of electric rays. The monsters slowly emerged from hibernation and, without having time to attack, turned into nothing.

In winter, steins woke up and tried to break through the electric wall to the warm waters of Umbra, but Ereb kept a watch for magical protection day and night.

Once one gawking guard released several enraged female “jellyfish” in the direction of the coral capital, but as soon as they reached the borders, they were killed by Ereb, and a guard was cut into pieces. In a rage, the head of the garrison wasn't inferior in bloodthirstiness to monsters.

The tridents of the northern guards, like all weapons in Umbra, were forged in the throat of the volcano. The sharp fins on the spine and arms of newts served as protection. Some of the guards created armor from serpenses' scales.

Sombra was dangerous for non-mutated residents with its hidden traps and especially with its viscous waters, forcing mermaids to get bogged down in them as if in poisonous seaweed.

The poison of Sombra got into the bodies of the exiles and divided the flesh, stripping the usual tails and smooth fins. The former beauty was replaced by ugliness.

The renegades of Umbra painfully endured the mutation in anticipation of the hardening of the fin rays. It interfered with sleep, because of pricking feeling, cut the delicate skin-scales, until it also hardened, having acquired a protective, slimy layer and not allowing the venom of local plants and parasites to harm its carrier. The worst thing was to suffer a mutation in the division of the tail: the newts could not move for weeks, lying in their wooden cabins in hammocks woven from sturgy seaweed, listening to the crunch of bones, the crack of torn flesh and getting cold with horror. Getting used to the renewed form was not given to everyone: some jumped from the peak into the abyss, where in an instant they were torn apart by monsters — they were just waiting for a tasty morsel – a victim.

The Queen read the reports of Ereb about suicide bombers, but didn’t try to help at all. She didn't need weak renegades (even of noble blood) who weren't ready to be punished. A worthless warrior is worse than a fish that doesn't spawn. At least that one you can eat.

When Chaos brought the disemboweled body of Forky to Ereb, the father gave the corpse an indifferent up and down look, continuing to polish the handle of the dagger with precious stones. Along with the sunken ships, the head also got countless human riches, which he didn't disdain to use.

“Won’t you ask how he got here?” the son asked, nodding at the dead man.

“I don't care where this carrion came from. The main thing is that it doesn't poison the water on my territory,” the head of Sombra noted boringly.

Chaos smiled wryly, but quickly became serious:

“He was lying on the bowl of a hot spring at the foot of a Black Cliff. The exile discovered him first.”

“Are you implying that a fragile girl managed to kill one of our guards? I don't recall appointing him to the watch.”

Chaos shook his head.

“This is Forky. When I left Imbra, he was still alive and serving there.”

It took Ereb a few minutes to process what he had heard. His eyes narrowed, and he put the dagger to rest on a coral arm of a chair.

“Hmm, Forky... sounds familiar… Wasn't he the one I received constant complaints about: carousing, connections with people, unauthorised departure from a post? And he like any ignoble is a little weak in sorcery.”

Chaos remained silent.

“And you want me to take the time to find out the cause of this... traitor's death?”

“I want you, Father, as the head of the northern borders, to sort out what happened to our guardian, who, along with others, was sent to Imbra. That's all I'm asking,” Chaos reported, looking into his father's darkened eyes.

“You consider yourself unfairly punished. You asked the Queen to spare us – your sons – at least. You beat out a few posts in Imbra for promotion, but you don’t care about the rest. Like the aristocrats from the south, outcasts like Forky disgust you. No one cares about their death, even so gruesome.” The tips of his fingers and the membranes between them tingled. Chaos remembered the emptiness in the place of the pearl in the dead body, but now he felt it in his own chest, as if it was not Forky who had lost the centre of magic, but he.

Ereb lowered his gaze. He gave up and muttered, “Okay, I'll find out how he ended up here in such a... shape.”

Chaos could hear the disgust in his father's voice. For a moment it dawned on him, and he realised that Nocté was experiencing around him, but she was patiently silent, not letting on how hard it was for her. The name of the exile flowed smoothly in his thoughts. From the back of the head, an electric current seemed to pass along the spine. The spikes on the fins bristled, causing Ereb’s puzzlement.

“I told you I'd figure it out,” the head said irritably.

“He was left with no pearl.” Chaos quickly calmed down. The fins folded, fitting to the body as a second skin and darkening at the elbows and along the spine.

“Hmm, what's the use of a grain of Forky’s magical energy, which you have a lot more.”

“It's up to you to find out,” Chaos thought and, bowing to his father, left the cabin room.

* * *

In the moonlight, Nocté saw a glint of the scales of a newt sitting on one of the black reefs. She put down her pen, blew on the ink drying in her diary and thoughtfully drummed on the table. While doing it she touched a bracelet of pale blue agate beads lying next to it. Agnes brought it that evening, saying that she found it in unopened chests.

Nocté didn't want to touch the gift, reminding of her crowned past. In the Black Cliff, she realized that that life was a burden to her. Cheerful receptions left a sour taste in her mouth. She was tormented by dizziness and pain in her legs because of which she couldn’t walk — the servants had to carry her to the bedroom, where the faithful Agnes was already waiting with ice.

The maid unlaced the suffocating corset, smeared the bruises on the lady's too delicate skin with ointments, gave Nocté herbal tea, forcing her to sober up. The king would come to his wife for a few minutes to make sure that his little mermaid was all right and then disappeared into the crowd again. On such nights, Nocté was more than ever aware of the soul-sucking loneliness. If she were at the bottom of a black abyss, among the ancient monsters, she wouldn't be as sad as in the palace filled with people having fun.

Every morning she was woken up without getting enough sleep, dressed up like a doll, giving eternal instructions on etiquette, from which, over time, Nocté began to shiver. As soon as her eyes darkened, it was instantly reproached with a reminder her of her nature. It didn't matter if she had legs or not — the queen still remained a stranger to others, a wild and dangerous creature. Behind her back, she heard the whispers of the courtiers - the bad rumors with which they frightened their children, saying that their queen turns into a sea sorceress at night and steals naughty babies from their cradles. Children avoided Nocté, filling the halls of the palace with heart-rending screams. The girl didn't grumble, didn't dare to complain to her husband, consoling herself with the fact that they are still together, love each other.

“Love,” the girl grinned, squeezing the bracelet. “A lie.” She approached the window - the newt remained at his post.

“I was stupid, naïve. People have taught me an invaluable lesson.” The bracelet flew out the window and disappeared into the darkness. “It's lucky that my mother didn't live to see my shame: it would have hurt her to see me like this.”

There was a soft knock on the door, and a candle lit up the room. Agnes was standing in a long nightgown and a moth-eaten robe. The sleeves, once embroidered with gold threads, were have seen better days, and the bells no longer rang on the soft slippers. The worn clothes of the royal family were given to courtiers and servants. Nocté carefully made sure that none of her outfits sailed to the noble and vile ladies because they exhausted themselves with merciless diets, just to get into the expensive dresses of the queen. Agnes artfully managed to change clothes for herself or gave away to faithful maids, something went to the daughters and nieces of cooks. The palace servants were the only ones who treated Nocté kindly. Perhaps, with Agnes' words. After the maid once caught a certain countess stealing her mistress's jewelry, Agnes began to hide the jewelry presented by the king in caskets and chests. At times, it seemed to Nocté that the maid was like a gray cardinal – she knew about everything that was happening in the palace, but interfered only if there was a threat to her mistress or innocent servants.

“Don't stay too long, and have a nice dream, mistress.” Agnes smiled and left. The strip of light under the door disappeared the further the old lady went down the corridor.

“Who needed the deaths of these newts? Is there something wrong going on in Imbra? Why do others need the pearls of their brethren?” Questions tormented Nocte until the storm began to drown out her thoughts, and sleep didn’t overwhelm her.

[1] Latin name for serpents

[2] Forky in ancient Greek mythology is the sea Chthonic deity, the god of the stormy sea, the god of miracles.