I never intended for my life to end like this.

The icy water holds me longer than my mother did when I left for school halfway across the world, tighter than the knots that held my bed sheets together as I scaled the school's stone walls, and with much less warmth than my winter clothes as I joined my fellow sailors and merchants as we crossed a frozen ocean so that we could sell our cargo. I never saw what hit our ship, only the jagged edges of glaciers passing us by and the garnet of our sails covering me and my companions as we fell into the freezing water.

I can feel myself falling, the weight of my thick and fur-lined clothing sinking into my skin along with the liquid ice trying to get past my lips and into my lungs. My honey toned hair dances with an invisible partner, getting into my coffee-colored eyes. It's only a matter of time before the need to breathe takes over and I inhale water.

Stay calm Sibyl, I remind myself. Stay calm. Don't let yourself go. Don't surrender. Don't ever surrender.

That was the mantra I always told myself whenever I felt my spirit weakening: whenever the head mistress would punish me for failing to act like a well-respected lady, when I wanted to go back to my room as the ship carrying priceless cargo was about to sail away forever, whenever a shipment seemed too dangerous and I wanted to abandon my companions to their fate. However, my resolve was slowly fading and losing this fight would mean the end of me.

I move my limbs to keep them working and swim for the surface. The light above me is starting to fade into darkness as my mind begins to protest its lack of oxygen. I fight against the need to take in a breath, but that is a battle I'm slowly losing. It only takes my gloved fingers touching the frozen wall above me to steal any fight I have left. Soon the darkness takes over and my lungs fill with the sharp edges of frost and ocean.

...

Instead of the pearly gates or the flaming pits I see shades of green and blue only found in the ocean. My skin feels an icy numbness and I take in what I know is water but my mind cannot comprehend it. Somehow, against any logic, I am breathing and I am at the bottom of the ocean.

I look around me as I try to understand the reason I am still alive. A splintered crate inches away from my face reveals broken vials and torn labels, its contents replaced with salt water. The waterproof covering on the name of our cargo, something I didn't bother to check before we set sail, boasts that the potions we carried gives it's user the ability to breathe underwater.

Sweet Providence, I thought, no wonder Felix bragged about this shipment. It may not allow us to retire now, but at least it saved my life. But where is everyone else?

With the feeling creeping back into my bones I start swimming. I recognize the silhouette of our maidenhead, a mermaid with hair like the sea, and make my way towards the dark shape of what once was the great Our Lady Nyx. The torn sails and the shattered bits of the ship, my home, tell me that I'm most likely the only one with a still beating heart.

I say a prayer for their souls and search for something in the ruble that can break the ice above me. A long shape coated in coral rests just below a plank of what once were the captain's quarters. It's thick and strong enough to break through to the surface.

Not daring to look back to the shattered pieces of my life as a sailor and a merchant and resisting the temptation to take a solid memory back with me, I reach for the surface once more. Providence knows how long the water-breathing potions last and how much time I have left.

...

The lady at the inn tells me how lucky I am, as if I didn't already know.

Another ship came and found me as I was walking out on the ice after I broke through its walls. I couldn't explain how the Nyx sank and neither could the sailors who rescued me, since they didn't see anything potentially dangerous as we sailed to shore. I told them about the water-breathing potions and they promised they would have someone locate more of them so they could examine the wreckage, but I could see the looks they gave one another. Who would believe something so ridiculous, especially since it was Felix who set everything up and he was most likely gone.

I absent-mindedly pick at the coral surrounding my salvation using my pocket knife, somehow still attached to my belt even as I went under with the ship. I refused to part with the coral-coated object, not that anyone dared to come near me. With a story like mine, they were most likely afraid of the instability of my mind.

I may be warm and in normal clothes now, but that does nothing for the ice that still surrounds my heart. I am most likely the only surviving crew member of Our Lady Nyx, the ship herself is at the bottom of the ocean, and I am alone in the world once again.

The candle by my bed catches the gold of the object in my hand. I continue to scrape away the coral and I begin to see markings of an ancient history I remember only from stories told to me as a child. In school I was taught to recognize and translate these markings, the language of a great civilization that most believed were meant for fairy tales and not scholarly research. With the candle's light to guide me, I read the words no one had seen in hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

As Fate chooses his pawns, so Destiny chooses her heroes.

The staff slips from my fingertips as the world begins to spin out of control. I had always thought that the stories about heroes were nothing but legends, but now I realize that legends are just twists of the truth. Perhaps that is why Destiny chose to let me live.