1 — Diana's Crack, House of Walsh

— You can't do that, Autumn! It's like you're sticking a dagger through my heart!

Jessica Akerys' big black eyes glared down at her childhood confident. Her incessant comings and goings in the long corridor of the Diana's Crack Convent had shifted her auburn curls and revealed her gills just below her ears. Outraged, the young woman continued :

—I can't believe the Manta priestesses could have conceived such a plan!

She was suffocating with anger. Autumn took her girlfriend tenderly in her arms, her green irises gazing at her:

— Jessica, I know what he did to you, believe me. If it were up to me, there would be no way you'd marry Liétald of Deminici!

The young priestess had uncrossed her arms and lost her composure. One of her blonde locks had fallen out of the blue hood that encircled her face. But the Manta training she had just begun had already enabled her to control some of her emotions. Facing her, far from being comforted, the young Akerys stepped aside and resumed her wrath:

—But can't you see? Reconciling the Akerys and the Deminici through this farce is doomed to failure!

She begged Autumn with her eyes:

—Please tell me this is not true,.. that I have a way out. . .

Autumn understood no more than she did. Or, maybe she comprehended only too much. Jessica's father, the great Turold Akerys, preferred to sacrifice his eldest daughter in marriage with the heir of the Deminici, a notorious lout, to form an alliance that had disappeared 200 years earlier.

Uneasy, Autumn nervously readjusted the folds of her long navy and white dress, the uniform of the convent's young nuns, and fixed her gaze on the glassed-in hemicycle that covered the underwater cloister. A squad of tropical fishes crossed the heights:

—Look! I hadn't seen one in years! With the global warming, they have almost all been extincted!

—Yes. . . Jessica mumbled while wondering how she could escape the wedding. The warming of the northern waters was suddenly no longer her immediate concern.

The sentinel of the Walsh House passed over them. Dolphin men with spears waved their tails in a coordinated patrol.

—  Sometimes I wish I had their freedom, Jessica uttered as she contemplated the guards. Why are we the only beings without fins in this ocean? She complained.

— You exaggerate, we still have slightly webbed hands and feet and then gills . . . which is already much better than our ancestors!

Jessica sighed and looked at the glass airlock in the centre of the cloister. The Walsh trident sat there, carefully anchored in a diorite, as for each of the houses of the seven kingdoms. She whispered, devastated: 

— Holy North Sea! How the hell am I going to get out of this?

2 — The Windsor Trench

Meanwhile, in the deep waters surrounding the Windsor Trench, the four Rohans brothers were swimming towards the Lorimean Sea. More evolved than the other peoples of the Seven Kingdoms, the human-shaped Rohans had tiny ears, large gills and the largest thoracic capacity in the kingdom.

At 18, the youngest member of the Rohans House, Gondebaud, expressed himself energetically with signs from both hands to try to dissuade his brothers from going this far, but Raybaud, Évrard and Quentin continued to ignore him, decided they were to defy the ban. No people of the seven kingdoms were to cross the Avilone Channel to reach the Lorimean Sea.

Unlike the Akerys and the Walshes, evolution had provided the Rohans with lateral fins on their arms and legs and enough lung capacity to stay in the water for a full day. The young Rohans, excited by the adventure, had thwarted the Muren Guards responsible for watching after them.

Straight ahead, the reddish coral of the pit road opened up the direction of the Blue Plateau. Some brownish scorpion fish watched them pass by and the waters became slightly agitated, causing their lateral fins to wave sharply. Soon, huge grey rocks replaced the coral. They recognized the Blue Plateau abandoned estate and a pinch in their hearts surprised them as they realized they had reached the exact place where Niptus the Great, emperor of the Seven Kingdoms, had died.

In the centre of the old courtyard, the shards of the broken airlock littered the sandy bottoms. The rock that once sheltered the Niptus trident, had eroded. When removed from its diorite case, the sceptre had caused the city submersion and caused its people to drown. Everything was nothing but desolation.

After a moment of hesitation, the Rohans explored the ruins. They entered a small dark cavity that resembled a cellar. The water was a little colder and murkier, but their eyes allowed them to see in the darkness. On an old wall, Gondebaud observed the remains of the Niptus coat of arms: a dagger covered in seaweed and entwined with an eel. It had probably glowed in shades of orange and blue and been adorned with sapphires, but time and algae had left their greenish mark. He looked up and searched for his brothers. They were nowhere to be seen. Confined to the ruins, which he now found hostile and suffocating, he ventured through a slightly sinister opening and was startled. There, incomplete bodies, still fresh, floated in a macabre glow.

After the initial fright, he forced himself to take a closer look. One of the corpses, almost decapitated, bore the bite of a Seasoul. Just thinking about it made him tremble. He had heard horror stories about these cunning creatures who had brought about the fall of Niptus and his kingdom!

The water suddenly seemed more threatening, and visibility was reduced. He could barely make out the walls of the cavity and only the muffled murmur of his legs could break the silence of the ocean. He then felt a presence behind him. In one swift movement, he put his kriss under the neck of .... Raybaud. He released his brother as the other two arrived. His fingers twitched angrily in underwater insults that only Rohans could understand. Not since Niptus had the Seasouls been able to penetrate the Seven Kingdoms. The Avilone Channel was far too dangerous for anyone to cross. Yet it seemed that the creatures of the Lorimean Sea had found a way through.

3 — Amalius Estate, House of Akerys

Back to Amalius estate, Jessica was standing determined in front of her father. Her long green dress emphasised the slenderness of her hips and brought out the auburn of her wavy hair.

— I don't even know why I'm listening to you! You will obey your father, Jessica. It was decided so!

His father's eyebrows had frowned.

— But..

He cut her off and glared at her.

—I don't see why I should justify myself. A woman of your rank knows that alliances are necessary! The Manta priestesses predicted it this way and above all, they saw the urgency of the situation!

He fulminated inwardly and then resumed more calmly:

— At the next perigee of the Moon, a major cataclysm will disrupt the ocean and destroy the Avilone Channel. The Lorimean Sea will definitely warm up. Seasouls will perish unless they take refuge in our cold northern seas. What do you think they're going to do?

— Take refuge in the seven kingdoms, Jessica mumbled.

—­ If we spend our time fighting with our neighbours, we will not get away with it. We need the Deminici shark armies to fight the seasouls!

His voice echoed in the palace hall with the authority of a misogynist king who would not hesitate to sacrifice his family to maintain his power.

Stunned, Jessica watched the Akerys' trident in the glass airlock. Her father's coat of arms adorned its handle: a marine iguana surrounded by a giant trevally. Perhaps her father didn't wear scales like the marine iguana surrounded by jacks that she saw on the steel, but he certainly had spines, invisible as they were. She remembered Liétald's brutality. By abusing her a few years earlier, he had left an indelible mark. With a superhuman effort, she banished the disgusting memory from her thoughts. Would a marriage with him really preserve peace?

4 — The Grouper Hole

Worried about their discovery, the Rohan brothers split into two groups. Quentin and Raybaud would return to the Windsor trench to warn their father of the seasouls' incursion into the kingdom, while Evrard, the eldest, and Gondebaud would continue their expedition to the Avilone Channel.

They butterflied towards the Grouper Hole and then alternated with the breaststroke, which was slower but more discreet, so as not to alert the particularly belligerent House of Blonay. No doubt paranoid, they had the unpleasant feeling of being spied on. The backdrops seemed to grow darker with each armful.

They reached the famous grouper drop-off, a vertical wall plunging to over sixty metres. Its reefs were reputed to be home to numerous pelagic fish such as eagle rays, napoleons and hammerhead sharks.

As they stood on the edge of the drop, four killer whales-mounted squires appeared below.

Their scaly green skin, characteristic of the Blonay people, glistened like armour in the dark abyss. Equipped with oxygen masks, the Blonay riders wore particularly sharp tridents.

The Rohans narrowly dodged the cetaceans that had swam towards them and returned to the charge.

Gondebaud and Évrard may have been agile and strong, but they were not as fast as the mammals. When the first killer whale was close enough, Gondebaud threw his spear, on the end of which he had just fitted his kriss, and aimed at the squire's neck. Hit, the Blonay fell off his mount and the orca, freed from the harness, changed prey and bit its former rider.

Everything happened very quickly. Évrard missed his target. The animal would grab him when something pulled him down promptly enough to avoid the killer animal just in time. A woman, also wearing a breathing mask, had just saved him. Évrard could not further spy on her as gigantic orcas came back to the charge.

Three harpoons suddenly crossed by his wide-open eyes and wounded the killer whales in the stomach. Apparently poisoned, the cetaceans succumbed almost immediately, ejecting their riders.

Too far away and dazzled by the rays of light, the Rohans could distinguish nothing at first. Then three women, carefully wrapped in a tight black diving suit, headed for the surviving Blonay men.

Their suit had an integrated breathing appendix and an air supply, and they were armed with a spear gun and a quiver of spare harpoons.

They all threw themselves at the three whale riders, cut off their masks with a knife, and let the Blonay drown.

The silence of the ocean had returned. The Rohans then observed the women who had just rescued them. Their long and beautiful legs evoked those of the Akerys or Walshes and under their masks, large brown eyes stared at them just as much.

The Rohan brothers thanked them in a seven kingdom's gesture and told them they were going to the Carassins inn to renew their air. Whether they were Akerys or Walsh women, they would need a break too to recharge their air. Then, all five of them headed towards the caves of Castellane, in neutral ground.

5 — The Caves of Castellane

Accompanied by the women, the Rohans reached the entrance to the Castellane caves, covered in a long cloak to hide the fins that might give them away. They equipped themselves with a mask to lure the guards; the Rohans were the only people of the seven kingdoms not to need one in the deep waters of the Northern Ocean.

Two saw-men asked them for their blazon so they could enter the decompression chamber. Both Rohans and women had false Castellan emblems that allowed them to enter the fortress.

They swam in a long tunnel lit by fluorescent fish and then reached one of the decompression chambers. Gondebaud closed the watertight door with the help of his brother and all clung to the forged metal railing, waiting for the pumps to suck in the water.

The brothers immediately removed their useless equipment, while the women had to wait until they could breathe air. Still dripping with water, Évrard and Gondebaud looked at the three women: two of them were very tall and athletic, while the third was much smaller.

— Akerys or Walsh? Évrard asked, a little harshly, as his Rohan fins retracted.

—Akerys! replied Gondebond loudly, acknowledging the face he had seen on one portrait at Amalius' estate.

Immediately, two daggers were placed under the boys' chins. The two tallest women forced them to kneel before the third.

—Gentlemen of Rohans, have we met before? No one can easily distinguish the Walsh from the Akerys . . . pronounced the smallest.

—No, Gondebaud strangled himself. And excuse my brother for his rudeness. We owe you our lives and thank you for it. We are Évrard and Gondebaud of Rohans. I remember seeing your portrait during one of my visits to the Amalius estate. Miss Jessica, if I'm not mistaken?

Young Akerys in turn recalled the engravings of the heirs to the House of Rohans.

—Pleased to meet you, Jessica replied, waving to her bodyguards to leave them alone. In front of her, stood the heirs of the House of Rohans.

— Will you do us the honour of sharing supper with us? ventured Gondebaud.

Jessica studied him, looking for the slightest trace of duplicity in his face, but found nothing but straight, smiling features.

— Well, it's a done deal, gentlemen.

A little spice and bit of the unexpected were far from displeasing the young Akerys, who tried to escape her thoughts by any means she could find.

They then separated to the spare rooms. Jessica exchanged a purse full of pearls for a set of three dry dresses. She opted for sober dresses that would not attract much attention.

The men exchanged a liter of krill for an all-purpose tunic. Dried, changed and styled, Jessica went out into the main underwater tunnel, escorted by her two guards. She met Évrard and Gondebaud who were waiting for them a little further away.

Under their clothing, no one could guess they were Rohans. She detailed Gondebaud's triangular jaw and her eyes crossed his. She felt pierced by his light irises, so rare anong the Akyris and for a moment, felt undressed. Gondebaud was amused by her recalcitrant curls, still a little damp.

The Rohans escorted the Akerys to the tavern restaurant. The dark room had been decorated with fluorescent jellyfish to subdue the light. They exchanged small talk during the meal and, helped by the alcohol, quickly got to know each other.

At ease, Gondebaud confided his discovery, in a low voice:

— We found traces of seasouls on the blue plateau.

Jessica's brown eyes rounded with worry.

—You think they managed to get through the Avilone Channel?

—Yes, that's the only explanation I can think of, replied Évrard.

—Well, in that case, we'll go to inspect the channel tomorrow!

—Miss Jessica, I don't think that would be wise. Your father would no doubt be worried about you being alone outside the estate, and even more so near the Lorimean Sea, the brother intervened.

—My father doesn't care about my comings and goings, Sir Gondebaud!

—Simply Gondebaud—His large smile gave her palpitations she had never felt before.

—I can't imagine Turold Akerys not caring about his heiress, but whatever it is and whatever your rank, it's not safe to go to the channel.

—Gondebaud... I don't need anyone's permission and it seems to me that this afternoon you were in more trouble than we were. Am I wrong?

He had an amused grin on the corners of his lips as he thought she was absolutely delicious.

A cat-waitress with eight barbels brought whale liquor and poured it into each of the glasses.

—You can leave the pitcher! said Évrard, grabbing the container.

Through the window, Gondebaud recognized a group of clown Castellane men watching the surroundings.

—The sea is getting warmer. Clown men are reproducing more and more, he noted.

—Yes, we have also observed changes in our Amalius populations. If the seasouls have found a way through, we will have to unite the forces of the seven kingdoms, otherwise we are lost!

Is it true that their singing can unlock the tridents from the airlocks of their receptacle? Jessica inquired.

—I'm afraid so. . .

They looked through the porthole at Castellane's trident, carefully sheltered in his diorite base and shivers ran down their spines.

—The Castellans are fairly neutral; in the event of war with the Seasouls, they would join us without doubt, Gondebaud said.

—Yes, the Akerys, the Walshes and the Rohans for life! added Évrard downing his glass as he detailed the shape of the Akerys guard standing close to him.

Gondebaud disapproved of his brother with his eyes while the cat waitress brought the main course.

—But for the Blonay and Deminici, it's another story, Gondebaud continued.

—There is no longer any problem with the Deminici, Jessica confided.

—Oh, yeah? And why is that?

—My father and the priestesses Manta decided to marry me with Liétald! His eyes darkened.

—This despicable. . .

He stopped. Looked at her. Felt her distress. A woman of her quality had nothing to do with a brute with no morality such as Liétald. . .

—On a purely political level, I can understand, he finally admitted. But I doubt the Deminicis could keep an alliance for the long term, even with such a marriage.

He brought his hand to hers, brushed her fingers to comfort her, and gazed into her eyes with an intensity that made Jessica uneasy.

—Well, and then what do you do with those Blonay lizards! dropped Évrard, completely drunk.

—If we unite the Akerys, the Walshes, the Deminici, the Rohans and the Castellans, the Blonays will no longer hesitate, his brother reflected aloud.

Évrard collapsed on his plate. Gondebaud gave Jessica a sorry look.

—I will take my brother to his room.

Then addressing the two great athletic women:

— Take care of your lady. I'll be right back.

6 - Under The Dome of Castellane

When Gondebaud returned, he suggested a walk with Jessica along the pathway dug into the caves. The two guards followed at a respectable distance. The path rose above the caves. At the top of the watchtowers, when the moon was full, you could almost make out the foam of the waves on the surface. In the distance, the dome of the Trident Hall shone with its thousand opal leaves. The glow of the stars filtered faintly through the depths where they were, but everywhere, photoluminescent lights illuminated the passage and were reflected in the glass ceiling that covered them.

— Liétald has a chance he doesn't deserve, Gondebaud finally dropped.

Jessica looked at him. She loved the honesty she could see in his eyes.

—I guess it takes what it takes. Our duty comes before our pleasure. You know that too! But it's true that it's always harder for us women,' she resigned herself

—I know.

His voice had softened. He would have kissed her, but she was promised to someone else. A heavy silence fell, as if hesitating between docile submission to the kingdom's policies and revolt of the heart.

—It's getting late. I'll show you to your room.

They walked silently through the long tunnel that brought them back to the inn. Their body had regained the rigidity one would expect from one of the seven kingdom rulers. Once in front of her bedroom door, Gondebaud, nervous, stammered:

—Good night, Miss Jessica. May the Manta peace be with you.

Jessica then hoisted herself up on tiptoes and stuck her lips on his. Next, with one hand, she gave her guards leave.

—If I have to give myself to Liétald, when he has already disposed of me through violence, then I can give myself to whoever I want!

She grabbed his hand, lured him into her room and slammed the door with her right leg. She unbuttoned his shirt and Gondebaud let himself undress without any opposition. He stroked her chin and then let his hand slide down her loins. He lifted her up and took her to the bed. Under the excitement, Gondebaud's lateral fins rose up. Slightly bluish, they glittered in the dark of the room. He finished undressing Jessica, took off her corset, her petticoats. His hand began to caress her shoulder while his lips could not leave hers. His fingers slipped along her back, explored her clavicles and then stopped on the tiny little fin that sat in the hollow of Jessica's loins.

— So that's the only difference that distinguishes you from the Walshes?

He watched the little skin-coloured fin shake over her buttocks.

—Yes, sir!

—And what is it used for?

—To make it pretty? she replied, taking hold of his mouth with greed.

And there, they made love with the passion of two people determined to take full advantage of the opportunity offered to them.

7 - The Song of Castellane

Jessica woke up at dawn, happy, Gondebaud at her side on the linen. She glanced out the window. In the excited dance of the waves, a rare moray eel sneaked across in the open water. The big blue seemed to be moaning a wind of tears when suddenly a decapitated man's head came through the glass and made her scream, waking up her lover. A crab had already cut into the corpse's sockets. A second monstrous wrinkled  but very much alive face, appeared behind the porthole. Red reptile-like eyes stared longingly at Gondebaud's body, lying on the bed. Jessica had never seen such an old and tired figure before. Yellow eels adorned the creature's head like a kind of hair lifted in all directions. Jessica jumped at Gondebaud to cover his eyes.

—Don't watch! A seasoul, she commended.

She rushed to the window to lower the blind, but what she saw terrified her to the fullest. In the depths of Castellane, it was not one, but hundreds of seasouls who were preparing to attack.

Beneath the bust of these anguilliform-haired women was a blood-coloured fish tail full of sharp scales. Their round, red eyes turned black again when they weren't attacking, and their flesh wrinkled and rippled to suit their desires. Even the colour of their scales changed from red to green, depending on their aggressiveness and the need to blend in with their environment. Sheltered behind the glass, frightened and fascinated at the same time, Jessica couldn't take her eyes off the creatures. Their very crumpled faces, with their squashed noses and toad lips, contrasted with the magnificent bust that proudly bore their firm, small breasts.

An alarm sounded in the inn and the yellow eel seasoul went hunting again. Jessica warned Gondebaud that he could now watch. All the Castellan people were on the alert.

—We must help them protect the airlock! Gondebaud exclaimed as he was dressing in a hurry.

He took Jessica by the shoulders and added:

—I can't just stand by and do nothing! With Évrard, we must protect these people. There are already enough guards in front of the trident's airlock, he checked by galloping into the corridor.

—But how are you going to do it? You can't meet their eyes or hear them sing!

He took out of his bag, yellow contact lenses:

—Évrard and I both have them, we can practically see nothing with them, it's as if we were almost blind.

—I don't know if this should make me feel any better! Not to see your opponent or being hypnotized to death by his gaze!

She handed him noise balls:

—These are effective. You will hear virtually nothing.

—Thank you. I'll equip Évrard with it. Blind and deaf, we're all set! He was trying to de-dramatize the situation, but his sense of humour fell flat.

—But you, Jessica, he commanded, catching her by the waist, you stay here. As you can see, they and we are equal. No masks. No risk of drowning. Unlike you.

She did not answer. She knew he was right. The seasouls were formidable and agile hunters with a fish tail that gave them extraordinary speed. Their fangs allowed them to tear off the limbs to better feed on the flesh of their victims and obviously more fish than humans, they needed no air to breathe.

Gondebaud went to get his brother to leave, while the Akerys made for the sacred dome.

Outside, Castellane's octopus men had gone out. Equipped with eight tentacles and thousands of suction cups, they hoped to suffocate their prey.

Black ink jets started to spread throughout the ocean, blinding the creatures nearby. The octopus men, with a wingspan of over four metres, began to embrace seasouls and bite them with their beaks. But few could evade the electric eels that adorned the hair of monstrous creatures and stung them to death.

Then, the castellans unleashed their hungry marine crocodiles as reinforcements. The reptiles pounced hungry on some of the snake sirens, but there were so many of them that some seasouls managed to escape towards the fortified caves of Castellane.

Some courageous Castellans nevertheless ventured out, harnessed with helmets and shield suits. But the underwater song of the Seasouls broke through their visors and got the men to drown. Evrard and Gondebaud, blind and deaf, could harldy resist in this ocean of combat.

Meanwhile, the Akerys women, armed to the hilt, stood close to the airlock, which was already well guarded by Castellane's sentry. If the Seasouls ever succeeded in breaking the dome and the diorite that held the trident, the entire city would be engulfed in water. Frightened, everyone looked out of the portholes to see how unequal the battle was.

A young blonde girl brought two jugs of desalinated water to the sentry. Dazzled by this strange beauty, the castellans lined up to get a drink, but soon they fell one by one, poisoned. At the end of the queue, those who had not yet drunk wanted to pierce the young woman with their spears, but under the red eyes of the beautiful woman, they dropped their weapons.

—A seasoul, shouted Jessica. She's changed! Quick!

The Akerys arrived near the siren in human form that had just begun its song. The airlock's vault began to shake while the men of the fortress remained incapacitated by the creature's song. The women, less sensitive to the laments of the seasouls, managed as best they could to approach. The red-eyed blonde creature dangerously stared at them, without hypnotizing them. Jessica and her two guards attacked it. The seasoul replied, but out of the water and even with legs, it lacked agility. The young Akerys beheaded it with her sword.

Outside, moving only with their sonar, the Rohans brothers reluctantly turned back from the unevenness of the fight. Back home, Evard and Gondebaud ran to the airlock. Jessica, relieved to see her lover, warned him:

—I will ask Augustine de Castellane for an immediate hearing. Tell my father. The castellans won't last long on their own.

—I'll go with you!

***

Arrived in the castellan throne room, Jessica unveiled her coat of arms to Augustin of Castellane:

—Sire, I am Jessica Akerys, the eldest daughter of Turold Akerys of Amalius. Whatever your past differences with the Akerys, I implore you to let me convince my father to send you an army. You won't last over three days without outside help and we are your nearest neighbours!

—Turold will never accept! the sovereign replied. But if you think you can convince him, then I'll have an escort prepared to show you an underground rescue and avoid the front. Hurry up! It takes you a day to get back and it will take another day for your father's armies to get back here!

—Sire, she added. You must forbid access to the tunnel leading to the airlock to any unknown woman. We just intercepted a seasoul in a state of human metamorphosis!

The sovereign seemed overwhelmed by events.

—I would like to evacuate women and children through the emergency tunnel.

—The seasouls will smell the perfume of the children, Gondebaud interrupted. The many they are, the more pronounced the effluvium will be. And then you risk them discovering your underground passages. That's not a risk you want to take, is it? Gondebaud had frankly spoken.

—And you are?

—Gondebaud of Rohans, Sire. He showed his ring with the sea dragon emblem.

—Well, I had all these beautiful people in the cave and no one knew it! the king thought out loud.

Gondebaud spoke again.

—Sire, if I may, I could also collect Alexander of Rohan's armies. Send a courier to the Windsor trench, I'll affix my seal to yours. My father will not doubt the message. My brothers and I crossed traces of seasouls on the blue plateau and they have already gone to inform my father.

It embarrassed the ruler to feel weak, but in the face of the dreaded carnage, he was ready to forget all the resentment of the past. The Windsor pit stood further away than the Amalius estate. It was necessary to have a fast courier to warn Alexander of Rohans.

—Do it, go ahead. I'll have a Blue Marlin prepared for you.

They wrote the message, brought the bucket and placed it in a capsule around the neck of the Marlin, which they release to the Windsor trench.

***

After the interview with the king, Gondebaud went to Jessica to say farewell.

—You must find your father...On my side, I will not abandon these people, as long as I can help them. Come home safe, Jessica.

He passionately kissed her as if they were seeing each other for the last time and then she left for Amalius' estate.

(TO BE CONTINUED)