"You are the curse," it said, advancing. "Every bad thing that's happened here traces back to you. The vandalism. The attacks. The fear. All because you exist. All because you refuse to disappear."
"I won't disappear." Maren forced the words out despite her shadows draining away. "I won't let you win."
"You already lost." The construct reached out, fingers extending toward Maren's face. "The moment you were born Pitch, the moment your blood remembered old magic, you lost. Some people are meant to be curses. You're just accepting what you've always been."
Cold fingers touched Maren's cheek.
The contact burned like ice, like shadow given weight and malice. Maren jerked back but the doppelgänger followed, its hand clamping around her jaw with impossible strength.
"Let me show you," it whispered.
Images flooded in. Not memories. Possibilities.
Maren saw herself exiled, wandering from town to town while the doppelgänger wore her face in Hollow Oak. Saw Tristan standing trial for harboring her. Saw Freya's apothecary burned. Saw Sage crying over flowers no one would buy anymore.
All because she'd stayed. All because she'd been too selfish to leave when exile would've been kinder.
"See?" The doppelgänger's grip tightened. "You poison everything you touch. The kindest thing you can do is let me replace you. Let me be Maren Pitch the way she should've been. Strong. Feared. Uncompromising."
"No." The word came out weak.
"Yes." The construct began pulling, drawing something vital from Maren's core. Not blood. Not breath. Something deeper. "I'll wear your face better than you ever did. I'll make them remember the Pitch name with respect instead of pity."
Maren's knees buckled. The ice was cold beneath her, seeping through clothes, through skin, straight into bone. Her shadows had gone silent, emptied out, stolen by the thing that shouldn't exist.
Someone had to see this. Had to witness the doppelgänger solid and real and separate from her.
The mob would come eventually. Would find her here, maybe. Would see.
Or they'd arrive too late. Find only her frozen corpse and the construct standing over it wearing her face.
Tristan's name echoed in her mind. Over and over. A plea. A prayer. A desperate hope that somehow he'd know, he'd come, he'd find the locket before the doppelgänger finished stealing everything she was.
Tristan. Please. The lake. Where the water remembers.
The doppelgänger's other hand joined the first, both gripping her face now, pulling harder.
"Almost done," it said. "Just a little more and you'll fade completely. Become nothing. A ghost no one remembers. Isn't that what you wanted? To disappear?"
Maren tried to summon magic. Anything. Even a spark.
Nothing came. The well inside her chest sat empty, drained, echoing hollow.
"That's right." The construct's smile turned gentle, almost kind. "Let go. Stop fighting. It's easier this way."
The cold intensified. Maren's vision blurred at the edges, gray creeping in from all sides. Her fingers had gone numb. Her breath came shallow.
The doppelgänger leaned closer, its face hovering inches from hers. Perfect mirror. Twisted reflection.
"You are the curse," it whispered again. "Say it. Accept it. Let me fix what you broke just by existing."
Maren's mouth opened. The words hovered on her tongue, begging to be spoken.
You are the curse.
Her mother's voice cut through the gray. Not memory. Not hallucination. Something else. Echo or ghost or dying wish given sound.
Where the water remembers. Where shadows sleep beneath. Find it, Maren. End this.
