My hands trembled, still gripping my bow and arrow. My heart pounded so loudly I was certain Johnny could hear it, could track me by the sound.

“Oh, Ruby!” he called out into the void.

Panic whirled in my mind like wild spirits, and I rose on trembling legs.

Darkness, shadows all around me. Utter and complete blindness.

Terror pulled me under. I began running blindly, my hands extended to feel for trees. When I slammed into a tree trunk, Johnny’s laughter rang across the forest, sending icy shivers through my blood.

He was going to toy with me until I died.

I stopped running, trying to slow my breathing until I could come up with a plan. Hard to think when blood was roaring in my ears, drowning out my thoughts, when the darkness was all around me…

But a fae didn’t need vision the way humans did. I breathed in deeply, trying to tune in to my sense of smell. Floating on the wind were the scents of the trees, the groves—yews, elders, hawthorns—and a single rowan.

If I could tap in to that power, the power of the Old Gods, maybe I could ignite a light in the shadows, enough to see where Johnny was, enough to look out for Adonis.

A sharp, shrill noise pierced the air—the cry of a magpie.

I ran, following the scent of the rowan, the sharp cries of the magpie. My shoulder slammed into a tree trunk, and I winced with pain. I tried running with my arms out in front.

“Ruby, darling!” Johnny shouted. “Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look? I could end this now, only I don’t want to.”

Tree branches and blackthorn clawed at my skin, but I tuned in only to the sound of the magpie shrieking overhead. The Old Gods were calling to me, leading me. I had to believe it, because I had nothing else left.

My feet sank into the damp earth as I ran.

Just as the sound of the magpie grew more distant, I caught a glimpse of a faint silver glow.

The rowan branch.

Yasmin’s words rang in my mind. In order to be our beacon, you’ll have to descend into the shadows.

With my pulse pounding hard, I ran for the tree. Wild relief flooded me as I reached the rowan trunk, and I looped the bow over my shoulder to free my hands.

“Ruby!” Johnny’s voice was overhead now, circling me. “Trying to sow divisions with me and Kratos, were you? Trying to make him think I had a bit of a drinking problem?”

Even as he was shouting at me, his words were slurred.

I pushed out his taunts, focusing on grasping for the knots and branches to hoist myself up the tree.

Laughter echoed around me. “Little beast. Do you really think climbing a tree will keep you safe? I’m not one of Kratos’s hounds.”

I was pretty sure Johnny could kill me with a flick of his wrist if he wanted to. The only thing keeping me alive right now was the fact that he was enjoying watching me scramble and stumble blindly.

Could he really not see the glowing silver branch?

I played up my helplessness, yelping and pretending to grasp wildly for branches, pretending to miss.

“Awww, dear Ruby.” His voice boomed. “I’m tempted to watch you starve out on that tree branch, feel the talons of famine sinking into your pretty little body. Your sister is supposed to return tonight, isn’t she? And how shall I kill her? Slowly, I think, and with as much pain and indignity as possible. Bit like you, clinging to this tree branch.”

Oh, you’re going down, Johnny. I reached the silver branch, then began shuffling along the bough, my blood pounding through my veins.

“Is it weird that I’m getting turned on watching you straddle that branch?” Johnny boomed.

With my pulse racing, I edged along until I reached the glowing silver. Johnny hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t said a damned thing about it. At this point, I could only imagine that he couldn’t see it at all.

I used my thigh muscles to clutch tightly to the branch, because I’d need both my hands for what was about to happen.

Before I reached for the knife strapped to my thigh, I took mental stock of my weapons. In my right hand, I held the bow. From the quiver, I pulled out an arrow, shoving that into my right hand as well, taking care to make my movements look as clumsy as possible, minimizing the appearance of a real threat.

“What’s the plan, Ruby? Shoot me blindly?”

With my left hand, I reached for the knife at my thigh. I’d only have one shot.

Moving at the speed of a fae, I yanked the knife from its holster and jammed it into the tree branch.

I am a child of the forest, of the Old Gods, and I command the light.

As I did, intense, ancient power blazed through me, and a burst of pearly light bloomed around me, illuminating Johnny flying just above me.

I was ready with my arrow.

I had just enough time to catch the look of utter surprise on Johnny’s face before I loosed the arrow, right for his heart.

It struck its mark in the center of his chest, and his jaw dropped, wings drooping. Horror contorted his features, and a thin stream of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.

The power of the ancient gods still flowed through my body, and I felt their vengeance, their wrath.

The Old Gods screamed through my veins as I watched Johnny clutch his chest.

A sly smile curled my lips. “Is it weird that I enjoy watching you suffer?”

Johnny fell to the earth, gray wings trailing behind him. I pulled my knife from the silver bough, still feeling the gods’ power thrumming wildly through my bones. The sound of wind and rivers roared in my ears, electrifying my body.

As pure, silvery light continued to blaze around me, the forest soil welcomed my bare feet with a lover’s embrace.

My gaze flicked to Johnny, who writhed on the mossy earth, eyes bulging.

I nocked another arrow, my pale hair blowing around my face. “You were never supposed to be here, Johnny. The Old Gods want you to leave.”

With the music of the forest pounding in my ears, I shot him again and again, until arrows protruded from his body like St. Sebastian.

I stood over him, a primal power skimming the length of my body. He began to convulse, a red foam pooling at his lips. I had a vague sense that night was falling around us, but that silvery light still bloomed in the air.

Ruby the beast had taken down an angel—with the help of the Old Gods.

When he stopped twitching, and his pupils paled to a milky white, I began digging, claws in the dirt, flinging soil with abandon.

The sounds of the forest grew louder around me, the colors brighter, until I was no longer sure I could separate myself from the gods—wasn’t sure where I ended and they began.

As I buried Johnny deep in the forest’s soil, my mind whirled with burning lights, the cries of the magpies. The magic inside me was sparking too hot, so intense that I felt at risk of burning out, of turning into a husk of a creature.

By the time I finished covering his pale, scrawny body with the last handful of dirt, my body was trembling, desperate for a reprieve from the gods’ magic. I fell onto the mossy soil above him, breathing in the rich scent of the earth.