Princess Of The Skulls - Chapter 67: Chapter 67

The throne room had been transformed into a battlefield before the first sword was drawn. King Magnus sat rigid on his throne, flanked by a dozen armed guards whose hands rested meaningfully on their weapons. Lord Cassius stood at his right side, his weathered face carved with the satisfaction of a man who believed victory was within his grasp.
They had miscalculated.
I entered through the great doors with Aldric at my side, our marriage bond humming with shared determination. Behind us came my personal guard—six warriors who had sworn loyalty to me personally rather than to the crown. Master Dorian flanked my left side, his hand resting casually on his sword hilt, while Kael remained hidden in the shadows above, positioned for a killing strike if negotiations failed.
"Seraphina," King Magnus said, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. "You will approach the throne alone and explain this unauthorized ceremony."
"I will approach as Queen Seraphina Thornfield," I replied, my voice carrying clearly through the vaulted chamber. "Lawfully married under the emergency provisions, speaking as an equal sovereign rather than your subordinate daughter."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Several guards shifted nervously, uncertain whether they were witnessing a family dispute or the opening moves of a civil war.
"There is no Queen Seraphina Thornfield," Lord Cassius interjected smoothly. "The marriage was conducted without proper authority and will be annulled within the hour. Your infatuation with my son does not supersede centuries of legal precedent."
"Actually, it does," Aldric said, producing the marriage documents from inside his coat. "The emergency provisions are quite clear on this point. When two royal heirs of equal standing enter into matrimony under threat of imminent warfare, their union takes precedence over parental authority."
"Threat of imminent warfare?" King Magnus's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What warfare? Who threatens our kingdoms?"
"You do," I replied simply. "Both of you. Your plan to use my wedding as cover for an assassination, Lord
Cassius. Your willingness to sacrifice me to maintain your authority, Father. You've made it clear that my continued existence threatens your vision of the future."
Through the marriage bond, I felt Aldric's steady support, his readiness to fight alongside me regardless of the consequences. But I also felt something else—a growing certainty that violence here would solve nothing and potentially destroy everything we'd worked to protect.
"Lord Cassius," I continued, turning my attention to the man who had killed my mother. "You murdered
Queen Isabella because she discovered something that threatened your family's power. What was it?"
"Your mother died in a random attack by bandits," Lord Cassius replied, but I caught the slight tightening around his eyes that indicated a lie.
"My mother died because she learned the truth about the skull relics," I said, feeling the ancient artifacts pulse with energy even through their distant containment. "She discovered that your family wasn't just hunting the descendants of Skull Kings—you were actively working to release the entities trapped within the dimensional barriers."
The accusation hit home like a physical blow. Lord Cassius stepped back involuntarily, his face paling as he realized how much I knew.
"The northern kingdoms didn't fall to random dimensional incursions," I continued, pieces of the puzzle falling into place as I spoke. "They fell because your agents weakened the barriers deliberately. You've been feeding entire populations to the entities beyond reality, and you needed the skull relics to complete whatever bargain you've made with them."
"Enough," King Magnus said, rising from his throne. "These are wild accusations without proof."
"Are they?" I pulled out a scroll case that Dorian had prepared, containing documents we'd discovered in the castle's deepest archives. "Trade agreements with kingdoms that no longer exist. Payment schedules for services rendered to 'interdimensional contacts.' Authorization for expeditions to recover 'dimensional artifacts' from ruins that were once thriving cities."
"All signed with your seal, Father."
The silence that followed was deafening. Through the marriage bond, I felt Aldric's shock as he realized the scope of his father's betrayal—and the extent of the conspiracy that had shaped both our lives.
"You've been working together," Aldric said quietly, the pieces falling into place for him as well. "The marriage treaty, the timing, everything. You weren't just trying to unite our kingdoms—you were positioning us both where you could eliminate us easily once you had what you needed."
"The skull relics," I added. "My necromantic abilities are the key to releasing whatever you've imprisoned in them. That's why you needed me alive until now, and why you planned to kill me immediately after the wedding ceremony triggered my full power manifestation."
King Magnus looked at his lifelong ally, and I saw something I'd never witnessed before—uncertainty flickering across my father's face.
"Cassius," he said slowly, "tell me she's wrong. Tell me you haven't been—"
"Been what?" Lord Cassius replied with sudden venom. "Been working to secure our future? Been making the hard choices you've always been too weak to make? The entities offer us power beyond imagination,
Magnus. Immortality, dominion over multiple realities, the ability to reshape existence itself."
"At the cost of our people's lives," Aldric said, his voice filled with disgusted realization.
"At the cost of cattle," Lord Cassius corrected dismissively. "What are a few thousand peasants compared to godhood? Your precious daughter was supposed to be the final key, the blood sacrifice that would complete our transformation. Instead, she's proven to be as troublesome as her mother."
The admission hung in the air like poison gas. Several of the guards looked physically ill as they realized they'd been complicit in genocide. King Magnus sank back onto his throne as if the weight of his choices had finally broken something inside him.
"You knew," I said to my father, though it wasn't really a question. "You knew what he was doing, and you allowed it."
"I thought I believed it was necessary," King Magnus replied, his voice hollow. "The threats from beyond our reality are real, Seraphina. The dimensional barriers are failing regardless of what we do. Cassius convinced me that alliance was our only hope of survival."
"So you murdered my mother and planned to sacrifice me to demons."
"I tried to find another way," he said desperately. "I kept hoping—"
"You kept hoping someone else would make the hard choices for you," I interrupted. "Just like you've done your entire reign."
Through the marriage bond, I felt Aldric's growing alarm as he sensed movement in the shadows above.
Kael was repositioning, preparing for something that would change the entire dynamic of the confrontation.
But before anyone could act on their preparations, the great doors burst open and Master Dorian shouted a warning that made everyone in the room freeze.
"The barriers are failing! All of them, simultaneously!"
Through the tall windows, we could see reality itself beginning to warp at the edges of the kingdom. The sky was turning colors that had no names, and shapes that violated the basic laws of physics were beginning to manifest on the horizon.
"The entities," Lord Cassius breathed, his face transforming from smug satisfaction to dawning horror.
"They're not waiting for the final ceremony. They're breaking through on their own."
"Because you weakened the barriers too much," I realized. "Your deals, your sacrifices, your meddling with forces you didn't understand—you've doomed us all."
The skull relics, despite being contained in their warded chamber, suddenly erupted with such violent energy that everyone in the throne room could feel their presence. Through our marriage bond, Aldric and I were hit with a wave of ancient knowledge that threatened to overwhelm our human consciousness.
The entities weren't demons or gods—they were the antibodies of a dying reality, trying to consume our world to sustain their collapsing existence. The Skull Kings hadn't been tyrants—they'd been guardians, using their necromantic powers to maintain barriers that kept the entities at bay.
And I was the last guardian, whether I wanted to be or not.
"The final confrontation isn't with you," I said to Lord Cassius, understanding flooding through me. "It's with the things you've let into our world. The question is whether we face them united or let them pick us off separately."
Through the windows, the first wave of entities reached the outer walls of the castle grounds. The real battle was about to begin.