Princess Of The Skulls - Chapter 22: Chapter 22

The moment stretched like a blade's edge between heartbeats. Lord Cassius held the bone artifact aloft, his finger poised to activate the binding that would turn my power against everyone in the hall.
Around us, the chaos of battle continued—steel ringing against steel, screams of the wounded, the acrid smell of magical energy burning the air.
But in that crystalline instant of decision, I felt something I hadn't expected: Prince Aldric's consciousness touching mine through our soul-bond. He was awake, aware, and furious.
Not alone, his voice whispered through our connection. Never alone.
The power I'd been gathering suddenly doubled as he added his magical abilities to mine—not the limited court magic I'd expected, but something far deeper and more dangerous. Through our bond, I felt the truth he'd been hiding: Prince Aldric was a trained battle-mage, his abilities deliberately concealed for exactly this kind of situation.
"Now!" I shouted.
Instead of unleashing my necromantic power directly, I used it to anchor Prince Aldric's magic, creating a feedback loop that bypassed Lord Cassius's bone artifact entirely. The ghostly army I'd summoned suddenly became solid, corporeal, as the boundary between life and death blurred under our combined will.
Lord Cassius's eyes widened in shock as his artifact failed to activate. "Impossible. The binding should have—"
"Should have what?" I stepped forward, my voice carrying the authority of someone who commanded both the living and the dead. "Should have turned my power against me? Should have made me destroy everyone I care about?" I laughed, and the sound was sharp as breaking glass. "You made one crucial mistake."
"What mistake?" he demanded, even as his guards fell back before the advancing spirits.
"You assumed I was fighting alone."
Prince Aldric rose from where he'd collapsed, magical energy crackling around him like silver lightning.
The wine's enhancement had fully integrated with his system, and I could feel through our bond that he was no longer holding back his true abilities.
"Hello, Father," he said, his voice cold as winter wind. "I think it's time we had that conversation about family loyalty."
The revelation hit the remaining guests like a physical blow. Prince Aldric—heir to the Thornfield throne, the supposed victim of this conspiracy was not just aware of his father's plans but actively opposed them.
"Traitor," Lord Cassius spat. "Everything I did was to secure our family's future, to ensure our bloodline's survival."
"Everything you did," Prince Aldric replied, stepping closer to his father, "was to feed your ambition.
Including murdering my mother when she discovered your alliance with the cult."
The words hung in the air like an accusation of damnation. I felt shock ripple through the crowd—and my consciousness. Prince Aldric's mother had been killed by the same conspiracy that claimed mine.
"She was weak," Lord Cassius said dismissively. "She would have destroyed everything with her squeamishness about necessary sacrifices."
"Necessary?" Prince Aldric's voice cracked like a whip. "You call murdering innocent people necessary?
You call binding souls to demons necessary."
"I call survival necessary!" Lord Cassius shouted back. "The old ways are dying. The kingdoms are weakening. Only through alliance with greater powers can we ensure our people's future."
"You mean your future," I interjected, understanding the full scope of his ambition now. "This was never about the kingdoms. This was about making yourself the conduit for demonic power, with Prince Aldric and me as your bound servants."
Lord Cassius's smile was razor-sharp. "Very good, Princess. Yes, the ritual was designed to bind both of you to me through the marriage connection. Your necromantic abilities combined with Aldric's battle magic would have made me the most powerful ruler in the known world."
"Would have," Prince Aldric emphasized. "But you failed to account for the possibility that we might choose each other over our families."
"Touching," Lord Cassius said mockingly. "But ultimately irrelevant."
He raised his hand, and I felt a massive surge of magical energy from somewhere beneath the castle. The backup ritual—the one they'd prepared in case everything else failed.
"You think you've won because you disrupted my primary plans?" Lord Cassius laughed. "I've been preparing for this moment for fifteen years. Every contingency, every possible failure, every potential betrayal—all of it accounted for."
The floor beneath our feet began to vibrate as whatever was happening in the depths of the castle gained power. Through the skull pendant, I heard my mother's spirit screaming a warning that was almost lost in the surge of demonic energy rising from below.
"The foundation stones," I whispered, finally understanding. "You built the ritual into the castle itself."
"Every stone laid with binding runes, every room designed to channel power toward the central focus,"
Lord Cassius confirmed. "You can disrupt individual rituals, but you cannot disrupt the architecture itself."
I felt Prince Aldric's alarm spike through our connection as he grasped the implications. If the entire castle was one massive ritual circle, then everyone inside it was potential fuel for whatever working Lord Cassius had been preparing all these years.
"How long?" I asked.
"The ritual began the moment you spoke your wedding vows," Lord Cassius replied. "It will reach completion in approximately ten minutes, regardless of what happens here."
Around us, the battle was winding down as Lord Cassius's remaining guards realized their master had been planning to sacrifice them along with everyone else. But their surrender came too late—the energy building beneath the castle was now self-sustaining.
"Can we stop it?" Prince Aldric asked through our bond.
I reached out with my necromantic senses, trying to assess the magnitude of what we were facing. What I found made my blood run cold.
"Not from here," I replied. "We'd have to reach the focal point and disrupt it directly."
"Where?"
I consulted the ghostly whispers of those who had died in the castle over the years, searching for knowledge of its deepest secrets. What I learned was not encouraging.
"The original foundation chamber, five levels down. But ." I hesitated, not wanting to voice what I'd discovered.
"But what?"
"But the chamber was designed to contain the ritual's power. Anyone who enters it while working is active will be consumed by the energy they're trying to disrupt."
Prince Aldric was quiet for a moment, processing this information. Then, through our bond, I felt his resolve and crystallize into something unbreakable.
"Then we'd better make sure we succeed on the first attempt."
I looked at him—truly looked at him—and saw not the political prince I'd married for duty, but a man who was willing to die to protect innocent lives. The soul-bond between us had been intended as a tool of control, but it had become something far more profound: a partnership of equals who chose to face impossible odds together.
"Together?" I asked.
"Together," he confirmed.
We turned toward the door that led to the castle's lower levels, leaving behind the chaos of the great hall and the wreckage of Lord Cassius's schemes. Behind us, I could hear him shouting orders to guards who were no longer listening, trying to reassert control over a situation that had spiraled completely beyond his grasp.
But ahead of us lay a challenge that would test everything we'd learned about magic, sacrifice, and the price of protecting those we cared about.
As we descended into the darkness beneath the castle, I felt the skull pendant growing warm against my throat. My mother's spirit was still trying to communicate something important, but the demonic energy rising from below was making it difficult to hear her.
What I did catch, in fragments and whispers, was enough to make me stumble: Not what you think, the ritual protection, not conquest. He lied about everything.
"Seraphina?" Prince Aldric caught my arm as I swayed. "What is it?"
"My mother," I managed. "She's trying to tell me something about the ritual. Something Lord Cassius lied about."
We paused on the stone staircase, the sound of our breathing echoing in the narrow space. Around us, the walls themselves seemed to pulse with magical energy as the ritual approached its climax.
"What kind of lie?" Prince Aldric asked.
I pressed my hand to the skull pendant, trying to strengthen the connection. What came through was fragmented but clear enough to change everything I thought I understood about this situation.
The demons are not summoned or imprisoned; the ritual is designed to keep them bound. Your father was trying to release them.
I stared at Prince Aldric in horror. "It's not a summoning ritual. It's a binding ritual that's been running for decades, keeping something imprisoned. And your father isn't trying to gain demonic power—he's trying to release demons that are already here."
The implications hit us both simultaneously. If we disrupted the ritual, we wouldn't be preventing a summoning—we'd be releasing whatever had been kept imprisoned beneath the castle for years.
But if we didn't disrupt it, Lord Cassius would complete his work and bend the imprisoned power to his will.
Either choice led to a catastrophe.