Artemis's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Artemis crouches at the forest's edge, fingers tracing the prints pressed into soft earth. The tracks are fresh — deep gouges from claws longer than her hand, stride wider than any wolf's. She's hunted this beast for weeks, and now the trail finally leads somewhere. But the prints stop at a campfire's circle of stones. Beyond it stands a rough timber shelter, smoke rising from its chimney. Someone else is here, in her woods, exactly where the beast should be. She moves closer, keeping to the shadows. A massive iron trap sits outside the cabin door, its teeth spread wide and waiting. The metal gleams in the early light, still clean. Whoever set it knows what they're hunting. Artemis circles the clearing, searching for where the tracks continue. But there's nothing. The beast's trail ends at the stranger's fire ring, as if it simply stopped existing. She studies the cabin's closed door, jaw tight. The hunt has led her here, to this person she doesn't know. Now she'll have to knock.