Chapter 27 Tristan
TRISTAN
Cold air hit Tristan’s back before he opened his eyes.
The fire had burned down to embers. The cabin smelled like smoke, pine, and the faint trace of Maren’s skin. Her side of the bed was empty. Sheets cool.
He lay still for a beat, listening.
Wind scraped against the shutters. Rafters creaked. The storm had quieted to a steady hiss, more ice than snow now.
No soft breathing beside him. No shadows curling along his arm the way they had when she’d finally fallen asleep.
He pushed up on one elbow.
Her clothes were gone from the chair. Boots gone from the mat. The place where her cloak had hung was bare.
Tristan sat up fully, jaw flexing once. He looked at the door. The bar was set, but at an angle that said careful, not panicked. She’d lifted it quietly. Thought about the sound it would make.
The tiger in him bristled.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The floorboards were cold under his feet. He grabbed his pants, shirt, and thermal, dressing fast and efficient. Movements drilled into muscle years before Hollow Oak.
When he stepped to the door, he saw it: the faint smear of wet where snow had melted off her boots before she’d gone. Already drying. She’d left before dawn.
He lifted the bar and opened the door a crack. Pale light edged the horizon. Gray. Flat. The kind of morning that made the forest look like a sketch, all charcoal lines and blank space.
Fresh tracks led away from the cabin, already softening under a dusting of new snow. Her stride was steady. Straight. No sign of a stumble.
He could follow. Shift, close the distance in minutes instead of the hour she’d taken.
His hand tightened on the doorframe.
The part of him trained to read patterns supplied the simplest answer: she’d regretted it. Regretted him. One night was enough to prove that getting close ended in distance.
He stepped out onto the porch anyway, bare feet hitting cold wood. The air bit, sharp enough to make his lungs sting. The tiger pressed forward, wanting to track, to find.
Tristan forced him back.
He wasn’t going to chase her through the woods like a feral thing after a frightened deer. She’d made a choice. Careful. Quiet. Alone.
He let the door swing shut behind him and stood in the thin light, snow blowing sideways across the clearing.
His comm crackled at his hip.
“Ash, report,” Mills’ voice came through, tinny and too loud in the morning quiet. “You at the safe house?”
He clicked the comm. “Negative. Laid low in an old hunting cabin.”
“Council’s calling an emergency session. Emmett wants you there. Now.”
Tristan glanced once more at the fading tracks. “On my way.”
He went back inside long enough to pull on socks, boots, and his black tactical coat. He banked the embers, set the wards to hold, and stepped out into the white.
He didn’t follow the route Maren had taken.
He cut directly toward town through the trees, boots biting into crusted snow.
The cold woke every nerve. Branches rattled overhead, dumping powder down his collar.
His tiger stayed close to the surface, restless in a way that had nothing to do with the weather.
She’s gone..
Still, as he moved, he checked the air, the sway of the Veil around Hollow Oak. If she’d crossed the boundary, there would’ve been a ripple. A shift.
Nothing.
She was still in Hollow Oak.
The weather had permitted them to meet in the Glade, also allowing them privacy from the fearful town.
It glowed weakly under heavy sky. Lanterns hung from bare branches, their light dulled by frost clinging to the glass.
Snow lay knee-deep around the standing stones; narrow paths had been kicked through by early arrivals.
Emmett stood near the center stone, broad frame wrapped in a dark coat, snow stuck in his hair and beard. Miriam waited at his side, hands in her pockets, eyes sharp behind fogged spectacles. Bram prowled the opposite side of the circle like a black-clad crow.
Tristan stepped into the clearing. The cold cut straight through his coat.
“Good, you’re here,” Emmett said. “We’ll keep this short.”
“Depends on whether we finally do something,” Bram shot back. His breath smoked in the air. “Talking hasn’t done much so far.”
“We’re not starting with that tone,” Miriam said mildly. “My ears can’t handle it before daylight.”
Tristan took up a position just inside the circle, not quite in the middle, not quite at the edge. Good sightlines. Clear escape routes.
“Report, Ash,” Emmett said. “How was the night?”
“Quiet,” Tristan answered. “No sign of the mob. No sign of the doppelg?nger.”
“And Maren?” Bram asked, too quickly.
“She’s not at the cabin,” Tristan said. “She left before dawn.”
Silence hit hard.
“Left?” Bram’s voice sharpened. “Or fled?”
Tristan kept his expression neutral. “Her things are gone. Tracks lead toward town, not away from it.”
“So she’s still in Hollow Oak,” Miriam said.
“For now,” Bram muttered.
Emmett’s gaze fixed on Tristan. “Did something happen?”
Tristan thought of her hand on his chest, her dark shadows curled around them both, the way the cabin had felt warmer with her in it. The way the bed felt wrong without her there.
“Nothing relevant to Council business,” he said.
Miriam’s eyebrow ticked up. Emmett didn’t push.
“Alright,” Emmett said. “Mills?”
Mills stepped from the shadow of a pine, cheeks red from the cold. “Another incident at the Wells property,” he reported. “Wards flickered, family panicked, nothing physically damaged. Again, shadow signature mixed with something else we still can’t pin down.”
“And what was the first thing Thomas Wells did?” Bram asked.
“Marched into and demanded we bind her,” Emmett said. “Again.”
“He’s not the only one.” Bram’s breath fogged hard. “Three households came by my door before sunrise. They’re scared, Emmett. They want us to act.”
“We are acting,” Emmett said. “We’ve increased patrols. We’ve moved Maren to the safe—”
“Which she left.” Bram cut in with a sharp gesture. “On her own. Defying Council protocol, again.”
“She’s not under arrest,” Miriam reminded him. “She’s under protection.”
Bram’s hands spread in a helpless shrug. “And now she’s out there. Unstable magic. Doppelg?nger loose. Wards failing. The people have had enough.”
“The people are listening to rumors and old stories,” Miriam said. “Not facts.”
“The facts are simple.” Bram’s gaze slid to Tristan. “Wherever she goes, trouble follows. Fires in her last town, now shadows here. How many incidents do we need before we stop pretending this is coincidence?”
Tristan felt the tension coil low and tight in his spine.
“You want facts?” he said.
Bram’s focus snapped to him. “By all means.”
“Fact,” Tristan said evenly. “The scorch marks at the lake didn’t match her casting pattern. I confirmed it myself.”
“You only know what she showed you.”
“Fact,” Tristan continued, ignoring the interruption, “her magic misfired at the stream, then the interference kept pulling after she cut it off. Something else was driving that reaction.”
“You have no proof—”
“Fact,” Tristan said again, voice sharpening, “the lantern at the forge exploded twenty minutes after she passed by, not ten like your witnesses claim. I checked Silas’s timing against patrol logs.”
Bram’s eyes narrowed. “So they misremembered. Fear does that.”
“Exactly.” Tristan held his gaze. “Fear warps perception. That’s what you’re building your case on. Warped perception and an old file that already proved she was scapegoated once.”
Miriam’s attention flicked between them, expression unreadable.
“This isn’t just about old files,” Bram said. “This is about patterns. Her presence coincides with every major incident. The town can see it. Why can’t you?”
“Because I rely on evidence,” Tristan said. “Not pitchfork logic.”
Bram took a step closer. Snow crunched under his boots. “You’re too close to this.”
“Close how?” Tristan asked.
“You’ve been assigned as her guard, her escort, her… companion.” The pause was deliberate. “Your judgment is compromised.”
Tristan’s jaw ticked once. “My judgment is clear.”
“Is it?” Bram pressed. “You defend her at every turn. You argue with witnesses. You downplay risk. All because you’re what? Charmed by her shadows? Enthralled?”
Miriam sucked in a breath. “Bram.”
“Enough,” Emmett said, voice dropping.
Bram looked like he wanted to keep going but shut his mouth with an audible click.
“Ash,” Emmett said, tone steady, “can you do this job?”
“Yes,” Tristan said.
“Can you keep investigating objectively?”
“Yes.”
“Can you protect her and this town at the same time?”
That was the real question.
Tristan thought of Maren’s cottage door painted with blood symbols. The safe house in the storm. Her wrists. The scars.
Then he thought of Wells’s little girl, clutching her mother’s skirt in a house with fracturing wards.
“Yes,” he said again. “I can.”
Emmett held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded once. “Good. Because I’m not replacing you mid-crisis because Bram doesn’t like your answers.”
“Someone needs to make hard calls,” Bram muttered.
“Hard calls aren’t the same as reckless ones,” Emmett snapped back. “You want to ease the town’s fear? Fine. We issue a statement. Miriam and I will go on record that the Council is actively investigating. That we have a suspect.”
“Which we do,” Bram said. “The witch.”
“The construct,” Emmett corrected. “The doppelg?nger. That is the threat. Not Maren.”
“You can’t separate them,” Bram insisted. “Same face. Same magic. The longer she stays, the stronger it gets.”
“Or,” Miriam cut in, “the longer she stays, the more we learn. The more she can help us stop it. Her magic is part of the problem, yes, but it’s also part of the solution.”
Bram scoffed. “You’re gambling with our people’s safety on a witch with a cursed bloodline.”
Miriam pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’m gambling on the idea that we’re capable of more than fear. That we can see nuance. That we don’t repeat the same mistakes that drove her here in the first place.”
Emmett’s gaze moved to Tristan again. “In the meantime, you keep doing what you do best. Track patterns. Follow evidence. Protect the vulnerable.”
“Which one is she?” Bram asked. “Vulnerable or dangerous?”
“Right now?” Emmett said. “Both. Which is why she needs someone like Ash watching her back instead of a mob at her door.”
Wind gusted through the Glade, spinning snow into brief spirals. The temperature dropped another notch. Tristan felt frost forming on his lashes, the burn in his lungs when he breathed.
“The storm’s turning,” Miriam said quietly. “We should wrap this before we all freeze solid.”
Emmett nodded. “Here’s where we land for now. We do not pursue binding. We do not exile. We investigate. We keep her under protection, not punishment. Anyone who takes matters into their own hands answers to this Council.”
“And if there’s another incident?” Bram asked.
“We deal with it case by case.” Emmett’s tone brooked no argument. “Not with blanket condemnation.”
Bram exhaled, a sharp, white plume. “Fine. But when this blows up, nobody gets to say I didn’t warn them.”
He turned and stalked out of the clearing, black coat vanishing into the wall of white.
Miriam watched him go. “He worries about the town,” she said. “Even when he’s being an ass.”
“I know,” Emmett said. “Doesn’t give him a license to hunt witches.” He looked to Tristan. “Find her. Make sure she’s safe. And keep your head clear, Ash.”
Tristan gave a short nod. “Understood.”
Tristan left by the southern path, coat pulled tight, collar up. The wind had shifted to a knife-edge cold. Frost clung to the inside of his nostrils when he inhaled.
He walked without hurrying, boots sinking deep, the world narrowed to white and gray trunks. The town came into view gradually of blurred rooftops, the faint glow of lanterns, and the darker line of the main street.
He stopped just inside the tree line.
There, under the noise of the wind and the weight of the storm, he felt it. A pull.
Not the wild, wrong tug of the curse that had twisted her magic at the stream. Not the sharp drag of the lake’s burning ice. Something quieter. A steady awareness at the edge of his perception.
He followed it with his senses the way he’d follow a thermal current in combat. Careful. Testing. It pointed toward town. Not the gate. Not the inn. West.
He let his attention sharpen.
Apothecary.
Freya’s shop glowed faintly through the storm, green-painted door barely visible. He couldn’t see inside from here, but his tiger settled like it recognized something.
She’s there.
He knew it in the same way he knew when a patrol was about to hit resistance. A bone-deep certainty with no paperwork to back it up.
He could go. Cut across the square, open that door, see her alive and upright and maybe angry as hell. His hand flexed on his coat sleeve.
She’d left quietly. That had been its own message. She needed space. Needed control over something when the rest of her life was sliding sideways under her feet.
He made himself step back into the shelter of the trees.
Snow stung his face, needling exposed skin. The storm was thickening fast, air turning heavier, sound muffled.
He watched the apothecary’s light for one slow count of ten. Then he turned away and headed for the security office instead, boots carving a clean, uncompromising line through deepening snow.
She was still in Hollow Oak. He could feel it.