Wen's eyes fluttered open from her dream, and she found herself restrained. Her hands were behind her back, and her feet refused to move independently. She was sitting down in what felt like a chair, though she couldn't move her head due to the ropes holding that tight, too. Whoever had gotten her wasn't leaving anything to chance.

We looked around the room, which was lit by several light stones. She was in one of the domed rooms. Above her, gems glittered in the shadows, though she could only see the few visible from her head's forced angle. Warmth covered her arms and back; she knew she wasn't alone.

She tried to place what had happened. She had a sense of memory still wrapped in her mind. The swordsman, Sayed, was now fixed in her head after reliving the short memory.

That could only mean another gem was broken, and she and Erin collapsed while fighting Roy. Honestly, the fact that she wasn't dead was the most surprising part. Roy would regret that mistake.

Crack.

"You're both awake."

The warmth behind Wen moved, and she guessed that Erin was strapped to the same chair as she was or that the chairs were strapped together. At least that meant Erin was alive as well.

"What are you—"

Crack.

"Mmmph!"

Roy struck again with his whip, and Erin grunted behind her. Wen put it together quickly enough. Roy had gagged Erin once he realized she had a curse, though that he hadn't done the same for her was odd.

"I didn't say to talk," Roy said, his voice shaking. "The only thing I want to hear from you, 'Cold Shot,' is your screams!"

Crack.

Fire raced down Wen's arm as the whip's tip cut across her jacket. It tore through her shirt and her skin with just one hit. Roy didn't let up either, bringing down the whip a second time, catching her across the chest.

"You're lucky Mister Deadman didn't want you dead." Roy sighed, resting his hand on his hip at the edge of Wen's vision. "He'd rather fix the problem with a bandage than solve it permanently. We need strong people like you under our control."

Wen didn't feel strong at all in her restraints. Every movement of her hands made the bonds tighter around her wrists. Her feet were completely immobile. She bit her lip as she waited for the pain to come again.

Useless. The word haunted her. However, she didn't know why. All she knew with absolute certainty was that she was lacking. She needed to get stronger.

Crack.

As the sound resonated around her, she didn't feel the pain from the strike. At first, she thought the whip had hit Erin, but Erin wasn't behind her anymore. For a brief moment, Wen was completely weightless, suspended in a void of stars. In the next, she stood on the deck of the Nighthawk, an open sea around her as the ship lay moored on an island.

"You're tensing up again," Jean said from the railing, his face still shadowed in her memory. "You need to let the aether flow from you naturally, no different from breathing."

Cold flowed through her arms and legs, and mist rose from her body on the hot night. She didn't notice, thanks to her curse. She had forgotten about that, hadn't she? She had a curse that allowed her to harness cold. She could freeze just about anything she touched.

It was not always useful, being a walking freezer—an ice queen.

"Hard to do when you keep throwing rocks at me," Wen whispered.

Jean turned, his posture smiling despite the shadowed face as he tossed a stone up and down in his hand. He stepped away from the railing and down the deck so that she had some distance between them.

"You need to learn to problem-solve on the battlefield," Jean said. "The heat of the moment is where a technique is born. After you create one, we can refine it, but you won't make it just standing out in the naked night."

Thud.

"And what exactly am I supposed to do?" Wen shouted, stamping her boot down. "It's not like I can conjure a wall of ice or make a shield that can stand up to your rocks!"

"That's what normal people think of." Jean shook his head. "I first conjured a shield of strings not long after discovering my curse. Alex has his wall of metal."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He paused, tilting his head as he took on a narrow stance.

"You, on the other hand, are very unique. You should try something only you can think of."

Whoosh. Clong.

A rock shot past Wen's ear, sending her hair flying back as Jean quickly stepped forward and threw a rock. She hadn't even had a chance to see it. If he had been even a centimeter off target, he would have hit her in the face and probably taken out her eye.

If Wen had not already known the truth, she would have given up. She would have died in one of the fights they seemed to get in constantly if she did not change.

She couldn't count on her curse as it was; she couldn't depend solely on her guns. She had to come up with something new. She had to force herself out of the rut she had been trapped in for years. She had to face down the rocks.

Whoosh. Clong.

That didn't change how terrifying it was to have one split the hairs on the top of her head, though. Wen's muscles tensed as her instincts told her to crouch down away from the rocks. Her lips tried to let out a scream, but she forced them closed.

Whoosh. Clong.

She needed a solution. She needed a way to stop the rocks that sailed past her. She couldn't just conjure a wall of ice. She threw that idea away. She couldn't reach out and catch the rocks, even with her hands freezing cold. That would just hurt her hands.

No, she had to try something else that was unique to her.

Whoosh. Clong.

On Aherlow, she had noticed something during a fight with a captain—a single moment when the world had slowed down around her, outside of her control. She focused on that idea, giving it shape in her mind as she drew in a deep breath and extended the cold from her body into the air around her. Jean said to try something, so she would.

Whoosh.

"Frozen Moment."

Her body went stock-still, the air around her freezing as her breath came out in a haze. She saw it, the moment frozen in time for an instant. The rock was coming on her right side this time. She could see its trajectory as it approached her. However, despite that knowledge, her body would not move. She could not act.

She blinked.

Clong.

The rock hit the ship's door a moment later. Wen gasped as she sucked in a new breath. It felt like she hadn't taken one in several minutes. Her muscles burned, and her eyes were dry. Still, the cold poured out from her body, numbing the fire and soothing her eyes. She blinked, looking at Jean, who smiled across from her.

"A good first try," he said. "Are you ready to go again?"

"I think so."

That wasn't the only night they trained her curse. Since Aherlow, she had dedicated every single night she could to some form of training with it. Jean and the rest of the crew helped her and did their best to teach her how to form techniques. The memories came flooding back into her despite the shadows over her friends' faces.

Each one had imparted a little bit of who they were in the training. Alex had shown her how her cold could numb her pain in a fight and go beyond what she thought possible. Sayed had shown her how to add a flair to style and the importance of precise, systemic movements. Erin had shown her how to get the most out of each technique so she didn't waste her aether. Jean had been there the entire way, making time, even when the others could not observe her practice.

However, one moment stuck out to her in her memories, a single night and words that she would remember.

"I don't think we could find better companions," a knight with a shadowed face told her one night as they looked out over the sea. "They have seen us through the mountains and the canyons."

"Haven't they?" Wen smiled for what felt like the first time in a long time.

She looked behind them, where Sayed had made a makeshift grill and was serving the rest of the crew what she called grilled kabobs. Sayed had called them something completely different, but she couldn't even begin to guess the spelling.

"We're going into Grim Aegis tomorrow. Aren't you worried?"

The knight shook his head, and she imagined he was smiling, though his eyes would have been on the verge of tears. Finally, he waved one arm out to the sea around them.

"Worry or not, I must face the world without guile," he whispered. "For, to be a hero of renown, I must answer uncertainty with a smile."

The world around Wen shifted, and she was pulled from the comfort of memories like she was on the end of a rubber band. She opened her eyes to the same circular room, with Roy smiling across from her, whip ready.

"You were gone for a while on that one." Roy smiled. "I wonder if he broke one or two."

He drew back his hand to crack the whip, but Wen didn't hesitate. She knew who she was. She knew what she was capable of. She was not useless.

She took in a deep breath and opened her gate.

Cold flowed from her heart, blowing through her body like a northern wind. White air passed from her lips as she exhaled. Erin's warmth on her back became as hot as a roaring fire as all the warmth around her disappeared.

Whip. Crack.

"Frozen Aura."

She hadn't mastered her ideal in 'Frozen Moment,' but as Jean had told her, it could always come to her later. She had settled on something else through their weeks of training. It was something that was more attainable and more useful.

Ice formed around her arms, cracking into the ropes as she lowered the temperature. The whip sliced toward her chest but slowed as it did so. Ice formed around the tip and drew a line through the air to the nearest point on Wen's body. It wrapped around the end of the whip and latched itself onto her, forming a bridge between the two that slowed the tip to a halt.

"What in the abyss are you doing?" Roy yelled, yanking back on his whip.

Crack. Ting. Ting.

He succeeded in pulling the whip back—her defense wasn't perfect yet—but Wen had bought the moment she needed. She released the hold on the technique as her body temperature plummeted and instead focused all that cold onto her hands and feet.

"Cold Touch."

Crack.

The water in the ropes froze at her touch, and she flexed her arms to break free, sending the frozen shards crashing to the ground. Her boots took a moment longer, but they came crashing apart just as easily with a quick flex of her legs.

Wen staggered to her feet away from the chair, her entire body numb but still steady beneath her. Roy stood across from her, his jaw slack as he looked down at his partially frozen whip. He truly hadn't expected her to be able to break free. That was his mistake.

She didn't have her gun. She didn't have her bullets. She had already taken injuries. However, there was one thing that she knew she wasn't. There was one truth that rang through her as she faced down Roy.

She wasn't useless.

"Let's go," she said. "Ice Blade."

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