The horn blew three times. Morning Offering. Kael knew the timing of that horn better than his own heartbeat. 6:00 a.m, every single morning. For nineteen years, that horn had meant the same thing: stop, kneel, bow your head to the Moon Temple on the eastern hill, and listen to Alpha Moros the second thank the Moon Goddess for keeping the kingdom pure. If you knelt slow, the guards whipped you. If you were an Omega or a half-caste like Kael, they whipped you even if you knelt fast, just to remind you that you were lucky to be allowed to offer at all. Kael was still on his knees at the foot of the Stone King, his bucket overturned, dirty water soaking his pants. He dropped his forehead to the cold cobblestones, his hands flat in the puddle. The lye smell stung. The entire Royal Courtyard went silent. Hundreds of wolves; warriors, mothers, pups, merchants, all kneeling, all facing east. Only one figure was allowed to stand. Above them, on the high balcony of the Alpha House that o

The rules were nailed to the Stone King's chest. Kael found them at 4 a.m. when he went to clean. He carried his bucket, his rag, and a small oil lamp that threw more shadows than light. The courtyard was empty, cold. The Moon Goddess was still high, a thin silver scar. The Stone King knelt above him, twenty feet tall, head bowed. The real dagger pulsed in his stone heart. Blue. Slow. Thump... thump... Kael had started timing his scrubbing to it. That morning, something was stuck to the stone chest, right under the real dagger's hilt. A parchment. Nailed directly into the stone with an iron nail, as if the stone were wood. Kael's stomach dropped. No one nailed things into the Stone King. It was forbidden. Even the Black Wolves were superstitious about it. He climbed up. He wasn't supposed to climb the statue; Omega rule number one: Never climb the King, but he had been climbing it since he was twelve to clean the pigeon shit off the King's shoulders. He knew every handhold. He

Zara had never touched Kael without whipping him.That was the rule since they were kids. Zara, Alpha Moros the second's only daughter, 17, black eyes, black hair oiled to shine, beautiful in the way a knife is beautiful. When she were eight, she ordered Kael to be her horse. He was Omega house's smallest boy. She rode him around the courtyard until his knees bled and then whipped him because he was slow.When she were twelve, she had her friends hold him down and cut his hair with a dagger, laughing at his ice-blue eyes. "Demon trash."When they were fifteen, she saw Elara healing his broken lip behind the statue and told her father Elara was wasting Seer magic on a half-caste. Elara got locked in the temple for a month.Zara had never touched Kael like a girl touches a boy.Until two days before the Blue Moon.Kael was scrubbing the bottom step of the Alpha House. It was the worst job; the step where Zara's guards spat. He was on his knees, rag in hand, trying not to think about the

They put Kael in the stocks for screaming. For "night terrors and disturbing the Alpha's peace." Two wooden boards around his neck, locked in the center of the courtyard at dawn, right under the Stone King's kneeling shadow, so everyone could see the half-caste who screamed a dead Seer girl's name in the night. His wrists were locked. His ice-blue eyes were dull from no sleep. Blood from where the guards kicked him dried on his lip. The parchment with the Contest Rules was nailed to the board above his head, flapping in the wind. Alpha Moros the second came down personally to look at him at 7 a.m., holding the fake dagger. Behind him, Zara, her right hand bandaged from frostbite, her black eyes furious. "Lyanna," Alpha said slowly, tasting the name Kael had screamed. "Where did you hear that name, half-caste?" Kael kept his mouth shut. Lyanna was Elara's mother. If Alpha connected Lyanna to Elara, Elara would be killed as Blue Demon sympathizer blood. "I said, where did you he

The Blue Moon was too big to be a moon. It looked like a blue eye opening in the sky, watching. Kael had cleaned pigeon shit off the Stone King's head for seven years. Tonight he couldn't reach. Thousands of wolves packed courtyard so tight his back touched warriors, his front touched Omega kids. He was in the front line for first time in his life because the Alpha's decree said every male 16-25 must attempt. No Omega exception. The Stone King knelt in the center, 20 feet tall, black stone wet with moonlight. Dagger in his heart. To everyone else it was a stone dagger. To Kael it pulsed. Blue. Blue. Blue. Louder than drums. Real. Alive. Calling blood he didn't want to have. On the high platform, Alpha Moros the Second wore his fake dagger on gold chain. Tonight rust showed even under torchlight - brown flakes falling on his red robe. He kept touching it like checking if it still there. Beside him Zara in a white wedding dress she shouldn't wear yet - tight, showing she already t