The Last Blue Lycan

The Contest Rules

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 pulled the lamp closer. Royal seal. Black wolf wax. Alpha Moros the second's personal seal.

BY ORDER OF ALPHA MOROS II - CONTEST OF THE ALPHA DAGGER - RULES OF PULLING

Kael's hands went cold despite the lye water.

He read.

---

RULE ONE: Any male wolf of age 16 to 25, pure-blood or Omega, may attempt to pull the Dagger from the Stone King's heart. To prove the Moon Goddess still favors the Black Wolves.

RULE TWO: The Contest will be held in TEN DAYS, on the Night of the Blue Moon, when the Stone King weeps most. All attempts will be made before the entire pack, under the Moon Temple balcony.

RULE THREE: The High Seer and his daughter will stand as witnesses. If the statue reacts, they will record it. The Seer's family swore loyalty to truth.

RULE FOUR: The one who pulls the Dagger will be named Crown Alpha immediately, regardless of birth. He will marry Alpha Moros's daughter, Zara, to unite bloodlines.

RULE FIVE: Any wolf who attempts and fails and bleeds on the stone will be forgiven. The Stone King is already dead.

---

Kael read Rule Three again. And again.

The High Seer and his daughter will stand as witnesses.

Elara. They were going to put Elara on the balcony next to her father while a hundred men tried to pull his grandfather's dagger out of his grandfather's heart.

And Rule One; any male wolf, even Omega, may attempt.

That meant him. The half-caste. The scrap who cleaned the statue. By royal law, he would be allowed to touch it. For the first time in nineteen years, he would be allowed to legally touch the real dagger.

A hand grabbed his ankle. Kael nearly fell twenty feet.

Elara. She had climbed up behind him, her brown cloak flapping, her bare feet finding the same holds he used. Her face was white in the lamplight.

"What are you doing? You'll fall!" she hissed.

"What are you doing? You'll be seen!" he hissed back.

She pointed at the parchment, breathing hard. "I saw the guards nailing it at midnight. My father is in the temple right now crying."

"Crying?"

Elara pulled herself up to sit on the Stone King's stone forearm, a place Kael had sat a hundred times alone. Now she sat there with him, two kids on a dead King's arm at 4 a.m.

"My father read the real rules," she whispered. "Not this." She tapped the parchment. "This is the pretty version for the pack. The real rules were given to him in private by Alpha Moros last night."

Kael stared at her. "How do you know?"

"Because I'm supposed to be a Seer but I can't See the future, I can only hear through doors," she snapped, then instantly looked guilty. "I listened. Kael, it's a trap."

She recited from memory, her voice shaking:

Real Rule One: The Contest is not to find a Crown Alpha. It is to find the last Blue Lycan. Alpha Moros knows the bloodline survived. The fake dagger he wears has stopped working; the dark magic that made it look real is fading. He needs the real dagger back.

Real Rule Two: The statue weeps only for Blue Lycan blood. When a Blue Lycan touches the stone, it weeps blue tears. The Seer must watch the statue's eyes, not the dagger, and signal if it weeps.

Real Rule Three: If anyone makes the statue weep, the guards are to kill him instantly, before he can pull the dagger. And kill the Seer if the Seer tries to protect him.

Kael felt the stone under him go cold. So cold it burned. He understood now. Alpha Moros didn't know Kael was alive. But he suspected someone was. The fake dagger fading, Kael had seen it himself yesterday during the Morning Offering. It was dead metal.

And they were using Elara's family oath against them. The Seer's family swore loyalty to truth. Now they were being forced to tell the truth that would get Kael killed.

"Your father has to signal?" Kael whispered.

Elara nodded, tears now spilling. "My father told Alpha he would. He had to. Alpha has twenty guards around our temple. If father refuses, Alpha will burn the temple and say we were Lycan worshippers. He told me to stand on the balcony and watch the statue's eyes and if it weeps, I have to raise my right hand."

"And if you raise your hand?"

"Guards shoot that man with wolfsbane arrows. Instantly."

Kael looked down at his hands. His cracked, bleeding, half-caste hands. In ten days, by law, those hands would be allowed to touch the real dagger.

And if he touched it, the statue that was his grandfather would weep for him. And Elara, the girl who had healed every wound he ever had, would be forced to raise her hand and order him killed.

Or she would refuse, and they would kill her.

Elara grabbed his hands, her gold light flickering uncontrollably now, gold turning blue at the edges.

"Don't attempt," she whispered fiercely. "Promise me. On the Stone King. Don't attempt. Say you're sick. Say your Omega master forbids it. I will tell my father you didn't come."

Kael looked at her hands glowing blue-gold on his skin. He looked at the real dagger pulsing above them, so close he could see the tiny runes: Only Blood Of My Blood.

For nineteen years he had scrubbed this stone and believed he was nothing.

Now he knew he was the only one who could pull it.

And he couldn't.

Because if he did, he would kill Elara.

He wanted to tell her the truth; that her gold turning blue wasn't a mistake, that she was like him, that she was quarter Blue Lycan and the reason she healed him so well was because their blood called to each other.

But he couldn't. Because if she knew she was Blue Lycan too, she would stand on that balcony in ten days and the statue would weep for her as well.

So he lied again.

"I won't attempt," he said to Elara, his ice-blue eyes locked on her brown ones. "I swear on the Stone King."

He swore on his grandfather's stone heart, and he knew he was already breaking the oath.

Above them, the real dagger gave one hard blue pulse, as if it had heard him lie.

And far below, in the dark courtyard, a guard's voice shouted: "WHO'S ON THE STATUE?"

Elara's hand went cold in his.