Artemis knelt beside the prints in the soft earth, running her fingers along the deep grooves. No bear had ever left marks like these — five claws instead of four, spaced too wide, pressed too deep. She'd tracked every creature in these woods for centuries, knew their weight and gait and the shapes they carved into mud. These belonged to nothing she recognized. She stood and nocked an arrow, drawing the string back in one smooth motion. The shot flew true, aimed at the shadow moving between the pines. But when she reached the spot, there was nothing — no blood, no broken branches, no arrow lodged in bark or earth. Just another set of those impossible tracks, leading deeper into the forest. She followed the trail into the dark woods where the old trees twisted together, blocking out the sky. Three more arrows. Three more times the shot felt perfect in her hands — the draw, the release, the flight. Three more times she found nothing but air where her target should have been. The arrows simply disappeared. No impact, no sound, not even the whisper of fletching against leaves. She'd hunted gods and monsters, brought down creatures that couldn't be killed. But this thing made her shots meaningless. At the base of the largest tree, something gleamed in the moss. Artemis crouched and lifted one of her arrows from the ground. The shaft had bent at an impossible angle, twisted like soft metal, the golden tip warped into a spiral. She turned it in her hands, searching for the force that could do this. Her arrows were forged to pierce anything — she'd made certain of that. Yet this one looked like it had struck something harder than diamond and folded like paper. She straightened and looked at the tracks leading away into the deeper shadows. Whatever left these marks, whatever bent her arrow and swallowed the rest — it was exactly what she'd been searching for. A barrier she couldn't breach. A hide she couldn't pierce. The perfect test for the perfect shot. She slipped the damaged arrow into her quiver and moved forward, her bow ready. The impossible creature was out there, and she would find it.