As the stench of rotting rats solidified behind the yak-skin curtain of the fortune-telling booth, Alyssa's fingertips were stuck in the cracks of the bone bell. The hunchbacked old woman's single eye glowed like a swamp bubble under her hood, and her withered claws slapped the crystal skull at a frequency that was synchronized with the death knell of the execution ground bell tower.
"Girl blessed by the Silver Moon," the old woman's throat sounded like the friction of rusty hinges, "it's time to listen to the bones." She pushed over a ceramic plate full of wolf teeth. Blue blood oozed from the gaps between the teeth, drawing a thorn pattern on the table that was the same as Alyssa's birthmark.
The moment the bone bell touched her hand, Alyssa's eclipse flame surged in her stomach. The bell tongue was made of a baby's umbilical cord wrapped around a silver wolf's toe bone. When it was shaken, it did not make a sound, but the words of the silver wolf from three hundred years ago that pierced directly into the skull: "Twins... one of them... must have a thorn pierced through the throat..."
The thorns at Kane's heart suddenly grew in his memory. Alyssa's birthmark twitched and spread to the side of her neck, with the end of the vine pattern pointing to her Adam's apple. When she tried to put down the bone bell, the old woman's withered claws suddenly grew veins, and she pressed her hand on the divination mirror - the mirror did not reflect the image, but the scene of Kane being pressed on the altar in his childhood: seven thorns were slowly piercing the boy's throat.
"Prophecy likes to play hide-and-seek." Lucien's cold emerald light suddenly illuminated the fortune-telling stall. The old woman's crystal skull exploded, and the flying fragments condensed into a miniature wailing wall formation in midair. Alyssa took the opportunity to stuff the bone bell into her sleeve, and her fingertips touched the incision on the inner wall of the bell - it was Kane's childhood name, and the edge was surrounded by the silver wolf rune of the forbidden thorn parasitic technique.
The knocking of black iron scepters could be heard in the alleys of the black market. Alyssa knocked over the poisonous lizard jar on the fortune-telling stall, and the slime drew an escape route on the ground. The bone bell swung spontaneously as she ran, and the whisper of prophecy mixed with the scream of the first queen resonated in her medullary cavity: "...When the roots of the crown reach into the throat, the blood of lies will irrigate the throne..."
The wailing stone pillars of the abandoned dyeing factory saved her trace. Alyssa curled up in the indigo dye vat, and the vibration frequency of the bone bell suddenly changed - the silver wolf toe bone of the bell tongue pierced her palm, and the blood beads rolled into the dye vat, turning the indigo into fluorescent purple. The scene of Cain's coronation night emerged in the blood: he tore open his robes to reveal his throat covered with thorns, and in the shadow of the altar stood the silver wolf queen wearing the same bone bell.
"I found you." Lucien's claws pierced the dye vat. Alyssa sank into the bloody water, and the flames of the eclipse ignited a faint blue halo underwater - reflecting the baby skulls piled up at the bottom of the vat, and each skull was engraved with the second half of the twins' prophecy: "...the surviving throat will curse the new life."
The bone bell suddenly broke free from her hand and floated to the surface. Lucien's emerald ring emitted a green light, illuminating the terms of the marriage contract hidden inside the bell - Alyssa's mother had signed a blood pact with the first king, and the thorn root in Cain's throat was the price of fulfilling the contract.
The beams and pillars of the dyeing workshop collapsed. Alyssa clutched the broken bone bell in the smoke and dust, and the wounds cut by the sharp edge oozed fluorescent blue blood. Where the blood dripped, thorny vines emerged from the cracks in the floor tiles, wrapped around Lucien's ankles and temporarily dragged him underground.
The twelfth death knell sounded from the direction of the execution ground. Alyssa's birthmark spread to her jaw, and the vine patterns under her skin spelled out the entire process of Kane being parasitized by thorns. When she pressed the bone bell fragment against the birthmark, the scene of three hundred years ago reappeared before her eyes: the first queen used the same bell to implant the crown roots into the throats of the twin babies.
The moment the moonlight was blocked by the black tower, Alyssa touched the secret compartment in the dye vat. On the faded parchment, Kane's throat anatomy diagram clearly marked the direction of the thorn root system - the end of each thorn was connected to the crown body at the heart, and the antidote method was painted with a burnt engagement bell.
The last fragment of the bone bell melted in her palm. Alyssa's throat suddenly ached, and tiny thorns floated in the blood foam she coughed up. When she burned the blood beads with the flame of the lunar eclipse, Lucian's secret room appeared in the flame - hundreds of the same bone bells were resonating and vibrating, and the bell tongues were pointing in her direction.