Chapter 32 Tristan
TRISTAN
The cold took Tristan’s breath away with a gasp.
Not regular winter cold. This went deeper, cutting through skin and muscle straight into bone. The lake swallowed him completely, dragging him down into darkness that pressed from all sides.
His tiger roared to the surface immediately, flooding his system with heat and strength and the desperate instinct to survive. But even shifter metabolism had limits, and water this cold didn't care about supernatural advantages.
He kicked hard, orienting himself by the glow below.
The locket pulsed like a diseased heart, silver-white light cutting through murk that should've been completely black.
Twenty feet down, maybe twenty-five. The current pulled at him, trying to drag him away from the light, away from the only thing that mattered.
His lungs already burned. The shock of cold water had stolen his breath on impact, left him with maybe thirty seconds of air before his body started shutting down.
He dove deeper.
The water fought him. Not natural resistance. Something deliberate, like invisible hands pushing against his chest, his shoulders, his face. The locket defending itself, or the construct inside it trying to keep him away.
Tristan pushed through, tiger strength driving each stroke. His vision narrowed to the glow ahead, everything else fading to irrelevant noise.
Fifteen feet. Ten.
The locket hung suspended in open water, tethered to nothing visible but refusing to drift with the current. Dark stones pulsed in rhythm with his slowing heartbeat. The crescent shape rotated slowly, almost hypnotic in its movement.
The doppelg?nger's face pressed against the inside surface like someone trapped behind glass. Its mouth moved, forming words Tristan couldn't hear through water and distance.
He didn't care what it was saying.
Five feet.
His hand closed around the locket.
Pain exploded up his arm. Not cold this time. Burning. Like grabbing a coal straight from the fire. His fingers locked around silver gone scalding hot, and his tiger snarled in his chest, demanding he let go, demanding he save himself.
He held on.
The construct inside shrieked, the sound somehow audible even underwater. The locket pulsed violently, trying to tear itself free. But Tristan's grip was iron, and his need to get this thing away from Maren was stronger than pain or self-preservation or common sense.
He kicked toward the surface.
The current intensified, pulling harder now. Trying to drag him deeper, trying to make him release the locket, trying to drown him and leave the cursed thing at the bottom of the lake where it had slept for years.
His lungs screamed. Black spots danced across his vision. The cold had invaded everywhere now, slowing his muscles, making each movement require twice the effort it should.
But he could see light above. Faint and gray but present. The surface, still impossibly far but getting closer with each desperate kick.
His free arm carved through water, pulling, reaching. His legs pumped, tiger strength fading but not gone yet. Not quite.
Ten feet from the surface. Five.
The locket burned hotter in his grip, metal searing flesh. He smelled burning skin, felt blisters forming and popping, but his hand wouldn't open. Couldn't open. Not until he was out of this water and the thing was somewhere Maren could reach it.
Three feet.
His vision went completely dark at the edges, tunneling down to just the light above. His body was shutting down, hypothermia and oxygen deprivation working together to pull him under for good.
One foot.
Tristan broke the surface gasping.
Air hit his lungs like knives, so cold it hurt almost as much as the burning locket in his fist. He treaded water, barely, his legs refusing to coordinate properly. The shore was too far. Maren lay on the ice where he'd left her, barely visible through the snowfall that had intensified.
Too far. He'd never make it.But then her shadows moved.
They spread across the ice toward him, faster than they should've been able to move given how weak she was. Darkness flowing like liquid, reaching the water's edge and not stopping. They dove into the freezing lake, wrapping around his torso, his arms, his legs.
Not pulling yet. Just holding. Anchoring him to something solid.
More shadows came. These ones spread flat across the water's surface, freezing it solid beneath them. Creating a path, a bridge of ice reinforced by shadow magic that shouldn't have been possible but was happening anyway.
Tristan kicked toward it, his body barely responding. The shadows tightened their grip, helping now, pulling him through water that tried to drag him back down.
His hand hit solid ice. He hauled himself up, every muscle screaming protest. The locket came with him, still burning, still pulsing with malevolent light.
The shadow bridge held beneath his weight as he crawled forward. Each movement was agony. His clothes had frozen solid, cracking with each shift. His skin had gone from burning to numb, which was worse because it meant frostbite setting in.
He kept moving.
Maren lay ten feet away, her face white as the snow around her. Her shadows stretched between them, trembling with the effort of maintaining the bridge and pulling him to safety simultaneously.
The doppelg?nger's voice cut through the howling wind. "Pointless struggle. You'll both freeze before you can destroy it."
Tristan ignored the construct, focused on closing the distance to Maren. His vision kept flickering, consciousness trying to slip away. His tiger fought to keep him awake, kept pumping heat through frozen muscles.
"Even if you survive, breaking the binding kills her.
" The doppelg?nger had reformed outside the locket, standing on the ice nearby.
Solid now, no longer smoke. The locket in Tristan's hand pulsed in sync with its heartbeat.
Connected. "Blood magic doesn't forgive.
Doesn't allow loopholes. Destroy me, destroy her. Simple."
Now he was only a foot away. Tristan collapsed beside Maren, the locket still clenched in his blistered fist. Her shadows wrapped around him immediately, trying to share what little warmth she had left.
"Got it," he managed through chattering teeth that made the words barely intelligible.
Maren's silver eyes found his, barely focused. "You're freezing."
"Been worse." A lie, but she didn't need to know that.
"Liar." Her hand reached for him, fingers brushing his face. Her skin was cold but not frozen, warmer than his by comparison. "We need to destroy it. Before it reforms completely."
"How?" Tristan looked at the locket in his hand. The metal had cooled slightly, no longer scalding but still hot enough to hurt. "You said breaking it might kill you."
"Might. Not definitely." Her breathing came shallow, each word an effort. "But we have to try. If it keeps existing, keeps feeding on fear, it'll just get stronger."
The doppelg?nger laughed, the sound sharp as breaking glass.
"Listen to her. So brave. So willing to sacrifice herself.
" It took a step closer, its form perfectly solid now, indistinguishable from Maren except for the black veins crawling beneath its skin which were slowly fading as well.
"But she's lying to herself. The binding will kill her.
Blood recognizes blood. Magic recognizes source. Break one, break both."
"Then we find another way," Tristan said.
"There is no other way." The construct crouched, bringing its face level with theirs. "The locket is eternal. I am eternal. You're just two dying creatures clinging to false hope."
Maren's shadows lashed out weakly, barely reaching the doppelg?nger before falling back exhausted. She'd used everything creating that bridge, had nothing left for fighting.
"Can't even defend yourself anymore," the construct said, almost gently. "How sad. How fitting. The great Pitch bloodline ending with a whimper instead of a roar."
Tristan's hand tightened around the locket, blisters breaking open fresh. The pain helped clear his head, pushed back the hypothermia trying to drag him under.
He looked at Maren. At her gray face, her barely-open eyes, the blood still seeping from wounds the doppelg?nger had inflicted.
She was dying. Whether from the construct's attack, from the binding's potential backlash, or from simple blood loss didn't matter.
She was dying, and he was too cold to help her, and the thing wearing her face stood five feet away smiling like it had already won.
The bond between them hummed, incomplete but insistent. Demanding he do something. Demanding he save her.
But how?
The doppelg?nger stood slowly. "I'll give you a choice. A mercy, really. Leave the locket here. Walk away. Let Maren die naturally from her wounds instead of violently from broken binding." Its smile widened. "I promise to wear her face well. To be everything she was too afraid to become."
"Go to hell," Tristan said.
"Already there." The construct gestured to the frozen lake, to the storm, to the two of them dying on ice that could shatter at any moment. "We all are. I'm just the only one honest about it."
Maren's hand found Tristan's, her fingers wrapping around his wrist above where he gripped the locket. "Together," she whispered.
"What?"
"We destroy it together." Her shadows stirred, gathering what little strength remained. "My magic. Your strength. The bond between us even if it's not complete." She met his eyes. "Together we're stronger than either of us alone."
The doppelg?nger's smile faltered. "No. That won't work. The binding is too strong, the magic too old."
"Together," Maren said again, her voice gaining strength. "Tristan. Trust me. There’s a reason it’s afraid of us."
He looked at her. At the determination in her silver eyes despite everything. At the shadows gathering around their joined hands, weak but present.
“Trust me.”
"Always," he said.