The western tower's secret passage resembled a decaying intestinal tract. Alyssa's fingers brushed the Wolf Mother's pubic relief as viscous marrow seeped from bone fissures, crystallizing frost on her grey-furred cloak. She counted curse glyphs—at the seventy-third crack embedded a rusted silver nail, its cap engraved with the ouroboros wolf from her mother's execution night.
"Old crone's secretions stay fresh." She sniffed the iron tang, prying the nail loose with a raven beak hidden in her thigh bandage. The wall convulsed, bone spines recoiling from her silver veins like serpents repelled by holy water, screeching like blades on bone.
Moonlight from the skull oculus speared her shadow onto the opposite wall's spinal relief. The shadow's neck suddenly bore bite marks—phantom blood droplets materialized from air, their source three floors above where carnage unfolded.
In the choking chamber, Kane tore a traitor's throat. His fangs dripped blood refracting miniature wolf sigils—each droplet's suspended mark gnawing at his "Mad King" tattoos.
"Voyeurism relapse?" Kane whirled, hurling blood pearls toward her crevice. Dodging, Alyssa watched droplets burst into mist revealing his branding ritual: child Kane screaming under the Wolf Mother's fang-branding iron, golden-red fluid rising from floorboards—identical to the spreading pool beneath today's corpse.
Her silver veins erupted, piercing disguise fur to stab the wall. The pubic relief oozed azure-black slime, corroding Kane's blood pool into skeletal voids. The traitor's severed hand slid to her boot, clutching half a clan emblem matching the secret passage's nail.
"Cycle buffet?" Crushing the emblem, shards gashed her finger. Blood dripped into bone cracks, triggering the Wolf Mother's birth scream. Glyphs rearranged into inverse prophecy: Feaster becomes feast.
Boots echoed closer. Alyssa jammed the bloody shard into pubic crevice. The wall split open, revealing a bone slide piled with desiccated corpses bearing matching emblems. She plunged down as child Kane's whimpers echoed above—phantom pup lapping golden fluid from his own branded flesh.
The slide spat her into a derelict chapel. Stained glass saints' eye sockets bulged with raven skulls. Moonlight scorched silver veins into her skin, revealing wolf sigils mirroring Kane's tattoos—each tooth gap matching his fangs' span.
Matins bells tolled as she crushed the last corpse's emblem. Shards piercing her sole summoned final visions: adult Kane in this chapel, slicing her infant swaddle with the emblem shard. His completed tattoos glowed, fangs dripping the same azure-black blood now oozing from her wounds.