Crimson moonlight leaked through bone fissures in the tunnel ceiling as Alyssa's fingers caught on the third rib's runic groove. The wolfbane burn on her wrist throbbed like a raven pecking at her veins—until she deciphered the fresh raven-feather scratches on the ossified wall.
"Clever paws for a thieving rat." She edged along the chilled bone surface, her grey-furred cloak brushing seemingly random marks. The mute wolf-servant's footprints pressed bloodstains into moss, feather tips reeking of carrion that prickled her nostrils.
The escape route revealed itself fully at the seventh turn: the raven's left wingtip pointed to the kitchen drain, tail feathers hooking three inverted triangles—the exact coordinates of Kane's recent massacre. Alyssa's nails dug into bone crevices as the Wolf Mother's pubis oozed corrosive mucus, etching pinholes in feather symbols.
"Timely assistance, old crone." She withdrew a menstrual-blood-soaked rag from her binding cloth. As droplets hit the wall, confinement runes hissed like snakes molting. Blood mingling with bone marrow reshaped the marks—gallows replacing triangles.
Chains clanked from the dungeon's direction. Alyssa stuffed the rag back, fingers brushing putrid lily petals stolen from the altar—now searing Kane's "Mad King" sigil into her palm.
"Double game?" She crushed petals over altered symbols. The wall convulsed, devouring artificial marks, leaving only natural fissures as false trails.
A raven's metallic caw echoed unnaturally overhead. Alyssa looked up to find the creature's eye socket housing a vampiric crystal monitor—matching the priest's device she'd glimpsed days prior.
"Homeward, sweetling." She fired a rat-toe bone from her molar, shattering the crystal. The raven fell with its neck twisted toward the southeast tower, disgorging a half-moon clan emblem—belonging to a rebel supposedly executed.
At the fourth midnight bell, the mute servant appeared at the sewer grate. Hidden in bone recesses, Alyssa watched him trace the forged map. His slave brand glowed cyan as fingertips touched gallows symbols—the wall suddenly contorting into the Wolf Mother's birthing agony, runes constricting his wrists like living serpents.
"Return gift accepted?" She melted into shadows, finding menstrual blood on her rag crystallizing into inverse thorns—mirroring Kane's shoulder sigil.
Dawn mist crept through cells as raven wings thundered from the southeast tower. A surviving crystal shard rolled to her feet, refracting Kane's profile: he polished a flaying knife with new grooves fitting that missing silver emblem.