The locket in his hand cracked.
Hairline fractures spreading across silver. The dark stones shattered, releasing light that had nothing warm about it. The construct shrieked, its form coming apart at the seams.
Maren's shadows surged inward, swallowing the breaking locket whole. She felt the magic inside it thrashing, fighting, trying to force its way out through whatever opening it could find.
She gave it none.
Her shadows compressed tighter, crushing silver and stone and malevolent awareness into something small and contained. The magic screamed inside her head, whispered promises and threats and desperate bargains.
She ignored it all, kept compressing, kept crushing, kept destroying.
The bond with Tristan pulsed stronger. His roar continued, unbroken, a constant vibration that shattered magical cohesion faster than the locket could repair it. Her shadows fed on his strength, grew denser and darker until they were nearly solid.
The doppelgänger dissolved into mist. Not smoke this time. Actual vapor, harmless and dispersing, spreading across the frozen lake until nothing remained except the faint smell of burnt copper.
The locket crumbled to dust inside Maren's shadow cocoon.
She felt the binding snap. Felt the backlash race toward her bloodline like lightning seeking ground.
Then Tristan's hand tightened on her shoulder, and the bond between them caught the feedback. Absorbed it. Dispersed it between two people instead of one, split the damage until it became survivable instead of fatal.
Pain flared white-hot through her chest. Maren gasped, shadows flickering. The well inside her that held magic spasmed once, violently, then settled into something different. Changed. Still present but altered.
Tristan swore, his hand spasming on her shoulder before steadying. "That hurt."
"You felt it?"
"All of it." He looked at her with something like wonder. "The binding breaking. Everything."
"The bond from joining our magic before." Maren's voice came out, almost too soft. "It must have anchored us enough to share the backlash."
She tried to smile, managed something that probably looked more like a grimace.
The wind died.
Not gradually. One moment howling, the next completely still. Snow stopped falling mid-air, the last flakes drifting down gently before the storm simply ended.
The silence felt massive after hours of supernatural fury.
Tristan looked up at the sky, at clouds breaking apart to reveal stars. "The storm was tied to the locket."
"Everything was tied to the locket." Maren watched the last traces of mist dissipate. "The fear. The attacks. The storm. All of it feeding the construct, giving it power to manipulate and destroy."
"It's over then."
Maren wanted to agree. But her vision was graying at the edges again, and the pain in her ribs had gone from sharp to dull, which meant blood loss reaching critical levels.
"Tristan," she said quietly.
"I know." His arm went around her waist, supporting weight she couldn't hold anymore. "Stay with me. Just a little longer."
"Too tired." The words slurred despite her effort to speak clearly. "Lost too much blood. Too much magic. Too much everything."
"Then I'll carry you back." He shifted, trying to lift her.
"You're hypothermic. You can barely stand."
"Don't care." He got her halfway up before his legs buckled, both of them collapsing back to the ice.
