Chapter 1
The roof started leaking before sunrise.
By breakfast, Mara Vale had already decided the house hated her.
She sat astride the narrow wooden beam with a hammer between her teeth and rain soaking through the knees of her trousers.
Below her, her sister held the ladder.
“You’re going to fall,” Elin called.
Mara pulled the hammer from her mouth.
“You’ve said that six times.”
“Because you almost fell six times.”
“I slipped twice.”
“Four times.”
“Two serious slips.”
Elin laughed.
Mara smiled despite herself and pressed another patch of tarred cloth beneath the broken roof tile.
Their house was small even by Greyfen standards.
Two bedrooms.
One crooked chimney.
A kitchen whose back window refused to close properly.
Every winter Mara promised herself she would fix everything before the rains came.
Every winter the rains arrived first.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“There’s another leak.”
“Where?”
Elin pointed through the open doorway.
Mara leaned sideways.
Water dripped steadily from the kitchen ceiling into an old cooking pot.
She closed her eyes.
“Wonderful.”
“At least we know the pot works.”
“Always looking at the bright side.”
“I learned from you.”
“That was your first mistake.”
Elin grinned.
She was sixteen and still somehow capable of smiling like the world had never disappointed her.
Mara wanted to keep it that way.
She knew she couldn’t.
But wanting impossible things had never stopped her before.
She reached for another tile.
Then the Moon Bell rang.
The hammer slipped from her fingers.
It hit the ground beside Elin.
Neither sister moved.
The bell rang again.
Deep.
Slow.
Heavy enough that Mara felt it through the roof beam beneath her.
Elin’s smile vanished.
“No.”
A third strike rolled across Greyfen.
Doors opened throughout the village.
Dogs began barking.
Then came the fourth.
Mara climbed down so quickly she nearly missed the last three rungs.
Elin caught her arm.
“You said it wasn’t until winter.”
“It isn’t.”
The fifth bell rang.
There were supposed to be ten years between Offerings.
Everyone knew that.
Greyfen had sent a girl eight years ago.
Mara remembered her.
Tessa Rowan.
Seventeen years old.
Red hair.
Always smelled of apples because her family owned one of the small orchards near the western boundary.
The elders had told everyone Tessa became a servant of the Moon after surviving the Offering.
No one had ever seen her again.
The sixth bell sounded.
Their mother appeared in the doorway.
Lena Vale was still wearing her nightdress beneath an old wool coat.
Her face had lost all color.
“Inside,” she said.
Mara stared at her.
“Mother—”
“Both of you. Now.”
The seventh bell.
Elin moved first.
Mara followed her into the kitchen and shut the door behind them.
Their mother crossed the room and pulled the curtains closed.
“What are you doing?” Mara asked.
Lena turned.
“Nothing.”
“That’s clearly something.”
“They cannot see Elin.”
Mara stopped.
Elin whispered, “Mama.”
The eighth bell rang.
Lena grabbed Elin’s shoulders.
“You’ve been sick.”
“I haven’t.”
“You are today.”
“Mama—”
“You have fever. You have the river cough. You have anything they need you to have.”
Mara understood.
Her stomach tightened.
The Moon Offering.
Every ten years, one unmarried woman from each of the twelve packs was chosen.
Twelve women entered the Hollow.
One returned.
That was the story.
That was the honor.
That was the lie everyone repeated because saying the word sacrifice made people uncomfortable.
The ninth bell rang.
Mara looked toward the village square.
“Everyone has to report.”
“I don’t care.”
“They’ll come here.”
“Then I’ll tell them she is sick.”
“They’ll examine her.”
Lena’s eyes filled with something Mara rarely saw there.
Fear.
Not nervousness.
Not worry.
Raw fear.
The tenth bell sounded.
Then silence.
A voice carried magically through the village.
“By decree of the Moon Council, Greyfen Pack will present its eligible daughters at the square.”
Elin’s fingers closed around Mara’s hand.
The voice continued.
“The Moon Offering shall be renewed tonight.”
Tonight.
Mara looked at her mother.
Lena whispered, “No.”
A fist struck the front door.
All three women jumped.
“Mara Vale. Elin Vale. Lena Vale.”
Elder Bram’s voice.
“Report to the square.”
Mara squeezed Elin’s hand.
“I’ll handle it.”
Lena caught her wrist.
“Mara.”
There was something strange in her mother’s expression.
Something beyond fear.
Mara frowned.
“What?”
Lena released her.
“Don’t volunteer for anything.”
The words were so specific that Mara almost laughed.
“Why would I volunteer?”
Her mother said nothing.
Another knock.
Harder.
Mara opened the door.
Elder Bram stood beneath a black umbrella.
Two Greyfen guards waited behind him.
Neither looked Mara in the eye.
That bothered her.
“Square,” Bram said.
“We heard.”
“Immediately.”
Mara stepped outside.
Elin followed close behind.
Their mother came last.
Greyfen’s streets were full.
Families walked silently toward the square.
No one complained.
No one dared.
The Moon Council had ruled the packs longer than anyone remembered.
Its laws were older than Greyfen.
Older than Blackmoor.
Older, the priests claimed, than the first Alpha.
The square had been prepared before the bell rang.
Mara noticed that immediately.
Silver banners hung from the council hall.
Torches burned despite the rain.
And at the center of the square stood a narrow stone platform.
Upon it sat an iron bowl.
Mara slowed.
“They knew,” she whispered.
Elin looked at her.
“What?”
“This wasn’t decided this morning.”
The decorations alone would have taken hours.
Maybe longer.
Greyfen’s Alpha stood beside the bowl.
Alpha Theron was almost sixty, thin and permanently irritated, with a wolf that had been weak for years.
Greyfen was the smallest of the twelve packs.
They had poor farmland.
Almost no silver mines.
Too few warriors.
When stronger packs negotiated, Greyfen listened.
When the Moon Council demanded something, Greyfen gave it.
Theron raised his hands.
“People of Greyfen.”
The crowd quieted.
“The Council has called an early Offering.”
Murmurs moved through the square.
A man shouted, “Why?”
Theron’s jaw tightened.
“The moon does not owe us explanations.”
Mara rolled her eyes.
Very convenient.
Theron continued.
“Every unmarried woman between sixteen and twenty-five has been entered into the selection.”
Elin’s grip tightened around Mara’s fingers.
Mara looked down.
Her little sister was shaking.
Sixteen.
Barely.
Her birthday had been twenty-three days ago.
Something ugly settled in Mara’s stomach.
The village priest stepped forward carrying strips of folded paper.
One by one, he dropped them into the iron bowl.
Mara watched closely.
There should have been perhaps forty names.
Maybe fifty.
The priest poured in dozens.
Then he covered the bowl with a black cloth and turned it three times.
“By the Moon’s will,” he said.
Mara hated that sentence.
The Moon was always blamed when men wanted something nobody else would agree to.
Theron reached beneath the cloth.
The square became silent enough for Mara to hear rain tapping against the stone.
His hand emerged holding one folded slip.
He opened it.
And stopped.
Just for a second.
But Mara saw it.
So did Elder Bram.
The two men looked at each other.
Mara’s heartbeat changed.
Theron cleared his throat.
“The chosen daughter of Greyfen is…”
Elin stopped breathing.
“Mara,” she whispered.
Theron looked toward them.
“Elin Vale.”
Their mother’s scream tore through the square.
“No!”
Elin’s knees buckled.
Mara caught her.
For several seconds, Mara heard nothing except the blood rushing in her ears.
Sixteen.
They had chosen a sixteen-year-old girl.
Her sister.
The girl who complained about leaking roofs.
Who stole the blankets during winter.
Who still left bread outside for stray cats.
“No,” Lena shouted again.
She pushed through the crowd.
“You cannot take her.”
Guards moved.
Mara stepped between them and Elin.
One guard reached for his sword.
That was enough.
“I’ll go.”
The words left Mara before fear could stop them.
Silence.
Elin grabbed her.
“No.”
Mara kept looking at Alpha Theron.
“I’ll take her place.”
Theron didn’t hesitate.
Not even for a heartbeat.
“Accepted.”
Mara stared at him.
Something inside her went cold.
The priest immediately stepped forward.
“By witness of pack and Moon, Mara Vale will represent Greyfen in the Offering.”
“Wait,” Mara said.
But the crowd had already begun murmuring.
Her mother shoved through two guards.
“No! She cannot!”
Theron snapped, “The substitution has been accepted.”
“You didn’t even think about it.”
Mara heard herself say the words.
Theron looked at her.
“What?”
“You accepted too quickly.”
His expression hardened.
“You volunteered.”
“Yes.”
“And the Moon heard.”
Mara glanced toward the iron bowl.
Elder Bram moved subtly in front of it.
There.
That was wrong too.
Mara released Elin.
“Mara?” her sister whispered.
“Stay with Mother.”
She climbed onto the platform.
Theron blocked her path.
“The ceremony is finished.”
“I want to see something.”
“You have no right—”
Mara moved faster.
She snatched the iron bowl from behind Elder Bram.
Several people gasped.
Bram seized her arm.
“Mara!”
She jerked free.
The bowl slipped.
It struck the stone.
Folded pieces of paper scattered everywhere.
Dozens of them.
The rain began opening the nearest slips.
Mara looked down.
Her breathing stopped.
One paper lay beside her boot.
MARA VALE.
Another landed against the priest’s robe.
MARA VALE.
A third.
MARA VALE.
Mara crouched.
She grabbed handfuls.
Opened them.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Every strip carried the same name.
Not Elin’s.
Not the other village girls.
Hers.
The crowd went completely silent.
Mara slowly lifted her head.
Alpha Theron had gone pale.
Her mother wasn’t looking at the papers.
She was looking at Mara.
And the horror on Lena Vale’s face told Mara something worse than the rigged selection ever could.
Her mother wasn’t surprised.
Mara tightened her fist around the wet paper.
The ink bled across her palm.
MARA VALE.
She looked at the elders who had pretended the Moon had chosen.
Then at her mother, who had warned her not to volunteer before any name had been drawn.
And Mara finally understood.
This had never been about Elin.
It had never been random.
Someone had wanted Mara inside the Hollow from the beginning.
And everyone around her had known.
