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 doppelgänger'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 doppelgänger 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 shadowswrapped 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 doppelgänger 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 doppelgänger 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 doppelgänger 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 doppelgänger 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 doppelgänger'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.
