Prince Stefan was supposed to be dead. Attacked by a ruthless necromancer, he had been mortally wounded by a poisoned arrow—a poison of which no remedy could be found in his kingdom. Just when Stefan had given up and accepted his death, a fairy had appeared and granted him one chance—two weeks total—to make it to an island of magic, where a cure would be waiting for him—if he could make it there within two weeks. All magic has its limits, and most is unforgiving. He left everything behind, including his crown.

Stefan had one week remaining upon his mortal clock. So far, things were going swimmingly. He had escaped his kingdom alongside his best friend Marius, boarded the ship that would sail across the mysterious waters, and now land was not far off again.

His next journey begins here.

4 Days Into the Voyage

A hefty breeze pushed the ship forward across the sloshing waves; the sea a swirling, sapphire abyss below. The crewmen enjoyed the sting of the salty wind and the peak of their voices over and under it: a storm was nearby.

Stefan clutched at the bow of the ship as it rocked between the swells, urging himself not to be sick. When the first mate spied him in this state, he discreetly pressed a mysterious leather flask into his hands.

"Have a little drink for ye," he said kindly enough. "It'll dull the sensation until the sea calms."

Stefan wordlessly obliged, inviting the burning liquid down his throat and into his stomach. In the far distance, a white flash of lightning pierced the horizon. The wind picked up and whistled past his ears.

He had wanted to remain on deck, scanning the sea for the first sign of land, but now evening was falling upon them and the conditions were growing rougher. On top of this, he refused to admit to himself, his shoulder was hurting again. Nothing he did seemed to take his mind off of the pain.

He passed the flask back to the first mate after a few deep swigs, and ran his hand over his mouth. "Thanks. See you at dinner."

The first mate nodded and took off.

In the galley, Marius was set at a bench working on some notes in his medical notebook, a journal he took with him everywhere he went. The hanging candlelight shed just enough illumination through the cabin that Stefan could make out his friend's messy scrawl upon the page. The book shut just as Marius noticed him looking. He glanced up, his eyes imperceptible in the shadows.

"It's impossible to get anything done with the ship rocking about like this," Marius remarked.

"Then take the day off," Stefan said lightly, taking the seat beside him. He was already feeling better from the drink, though a sudden pang shot through his shoulder and down into his chest. He shuddered involuntarily.

Marius noticed this. "I can't 'take the day off', my friend. Despite this promise from a fairy, it's still my job to work until I find an answer to… to your-"

"—I'm fine," Stefan said quickly, cutting him off. "And I doubt you'll be able to come up with something in this setting, at least. The captain says we will be arriving to the island tomorrow."

Marius raised his eyebrows. "And what if we don't?"

Stefan shrugged, plucking an apple from a nearby bowl and biting into it. He concentrated on suppressing every surfacing thought about his pending death.

"Anyway," Marius continued determinedly, "I think I'm on to something. You see, the slow acting poison working through your body matches one I studied while working with that healer from the mountains, some years ago. It used to be believed that there was no cure for it—until one was found, of course, in another land. The chemical material that the remedy is composed of is quite basic, and similar to ingredients found, well, in the sea."

Stefan struggled to swallow the bites of apple as the ship bumped and groaned. "It's really extraordinary, at this point, to entertain the possibility that the sea could have anything to offer but nausea and disorientation," he remarked.

"That, I can agree with," Marius replied. He pulled a small vial from out of his vest and handed it to Stefan. "You should apply this to your wound tonight. It'll help with the pain, as well as slowing the poison's progress. It will also make you quite tired, I think."

"I haven't slept in days," Stefan suddenly realize aloud.

An uneasy silence followed and penetrated the galley, only to be interrupted by the distant rumble of thunder.

"You need some sleep, my friend," Marius said, getting up and gathering his things. "I'll meet you on deck in a few hours for supper."

Stefan shuffled back to his private cabin and carefully removed his shirt, refusing to spare even a glance at his wound in the mirror. Surely it looked worse than ever now, now that he was so close to—

-the end?

After applying the serum, he was at last lulled into a strange, numbing state of mind. And when he lay down on his cot and closed his eyes, he finally fell into a deep, deep sleep.

Stefan continued to sleep as the waves, gathering strength, crashed against the hull of the ship, as if they were Poseidon's very own fists heaving up from the deep, thirsty for chaos. His dreams were like a trap he had fallen into, and in his subconscious he tried to claw his way out of them as his cabin rocked wildly. Then the door to his room burst open.

Marius seized him by his shoulders and Stefan woke with a cry of pain.

"We need to get on deck—the ship is on fire!"

Stefan shook his head, dazed. "What?"

Marius heaved him to his feet and Stefan was forced to follow him through the haze of half consciousness he was still in. The hallway was filling with smoke as they stumbled along the heaving floor and caught hold of the ladder that led to the deck. Through the opening, fresh and furious seawater came gushing through.

Upon the deck, the crewmen ran about frantically, passing buckets of water in a chaotic procession. The fire blazed over the captain's quarters, and yet still the ship burned in the midst of a howling gale, and so fire, wind and rain filled the sky together. Stefan had barely enough time to take it all in when the ship lurched steeply on its side, sending crewmen and equipment alike sliding across the deck in a flurry of ice cold foam.

The fire could not be contained. It spread like a madness, destroying all the ship in its path. The ship creaked and quaked, falling apart in the thrashing of the sea. Once the crew determined that the ship was gone, they ran about releasing the dinghies and dropping them into the waves. In the confusion, the cannons were released from their ties and so they began to wheel wildly around the deck, smashing and obliterating anything in their path. By now, men were practically throwing themselves off the ship and into the dinghies below. Marius helped Stefan move toward where the captain was evacuating passengers. The deck groaned beneath their feet as they moved, followed by a gush of sea that rushed up to their knees. The ship was lurching again to its side. As Marius struggled to right himself, he didn't see the loose cannon rolling toward him. Stefan, however, saw it and threw his body forward, knocking Marius out of its path. The next second, the cannon caught Stefan and dragged him across the deck, smashing into the opposite railing. The ship splintered and the cannon fell through and into the sea; Stefan, winded from the impact, remained dangling off the side.

The shock from the impact sent dark clouds running through his brain, and as the ship continued to rock in the thrashing waves, Stefan felt his fingers slip, and then a release. A feeling of being free ran through his body for one sweet, fleeting moment before he plunged through the surface of the sea and into the swirling, mysterious deep below.

The underwater world was churning, restless. Stefan flailed his limbs frantically against the pull, but his strength was incomparable to the might of the sea. The water was black to his eyes, and the immediate tightness blooming in his lungs threatened to overcome the bitter numbness he was beginning to feel from the icy water. His body thrashed and spun in the current—never going up, but continuously down. His thoughts began to drain from his mind as his consciousness faded.

So here it is, my grave at last…

He did not feel a pair of hands reach out through the cold darkness and grasp him suddenly, nor was he aware that he was then being pulled through the water with ease, at top speed. His mind had drifted elsewhere for the time. He dreamt of death.