Phosphorescent flames danced through fissures in the Wolf Mother's sacrum, fracturing Alyssa's shadow into seventy-two shards. The seventy-third confinement rune glowed with corpse-wax luminescence as her fingers grazed the scroll's edge. Parchment curled into a uterine shape before combusting, smoke twisting into a three-century-old council scene—twelve elders dipping the Wolf Mother's rib into silver wolf fetal blood to brand infant Kane's spine with the first "Mad King" sigil.
(Memory Echo · Frost Moon Sacrifice) Blood Moon 73, Frost Month Seven-year-old Kane writhed in altar grooves, chains scraping raw flesh as azure-black ooze from the Wolf Mother's pubic relief corroded his ankles. The priest offered a skull bowl brimming with lily-root infusion: "Drink this sacrament, become devourer and vessel entwined." The boy's emerging fangs tore through the priest's rotting hand. Blood droplets etched an inverted pentagram onto the altar. Ravens shrieked above, dropping shroud fragments embroidered with seventy-two names—each matching missing infants from silver wolf genealogies.
"Mother..." Alyssa's silver veins convulsed as the phantom pentagram resonated with her collarbone brand. Walls exuded the mute servant's death-memory: Kane standing over the Wolf Mother's cleft skull, seventy-three silver wolf umbilical cords netting beneath his boots, each bronze bell at their ends engraved with Laine's curses and containing fetal hair.
(Present Entanglement · Umbilical Chime Web) "Crone repurposes even nursery waste?" She snapped wrist-bound lily roots, sap burning the Wolf Mother's birth chart into her palm. A pubic bone crashed down, blood ripples revealing her mother's murder—strands of natal hair being woven into Kane's nuchal sigil.
Wolf howls fused with bronze bell tolls. Alyssa's hair lashed like serpents, tips sketching the hidden clause of Umbilical Pact in blood: At lunar eclipse, three silver wolf witches' uterine blood must renew the sigil Confinement runes animated, whirlpooling blood to surface her infant placenta—mold-formed wolves battling Kane's tattooed back.
"Deluxe two-way curse?" Kane's projection coalesced from mold, sigils feeding on her hair's resentment. Seven barbed bronze nails shot forth, etched with silver wolf priestesses' dying curses: "Think burning contracts breaks blood-nooses?"
Alyssa bit through her tongue, bloody spittle striking nails. Inverted runes projected Blood Oath fragments: At 73rd Blood Moon, devourer becomes sacrifice's womb Moonlight melted nails into azure sludge through the skull oculus—teenage Kane hammering milk teeth into the Wolf Mother's womb, each engraved with Alyssa's clan crest.
"New course added to cyclical feast?" She crammed placenta shards into festering silver veins. Hair ensnared Kane's neck as sparks illuminated the vault—countless umbilical cords dangling from the Wolf Mother's pelvis, silver womb models clinking with "73" engravings.
Spinal explosions rocked the chamber. Alyssa rolled over shattered bronze vessels, a wolf pup's skull suddenly gaping— Three-century-old sealing wax in its teeth bore mother's corneal fragment within lily sigils.
(Alyssa's Monologue) The corneal shard's icy curve matched her collarbone brand. Phosphorescence danced across preserved iris striations—she saw mother's frozen rage as the blade took her eyes. These orbs had been curse-lenses long before my first cry...
Kane's laughter echoed through umbilical chimes. A womb model cracked open, fetus reaching moonlight with palm-branded inverse "Mad King" sigil—mirroring Kane's childhood scar.
As the blood moon prism shifted above, confinement runes branded her retinas. Alyssa knew when light engulfed the Wolf Mother's pelvis, the "73" on her collarbone would cease being a designation— It would become gestation countdown.