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 doppelgänger'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.
