Princess Of The Skulls - Chapter 73: Chapter 73

The battlefield stretched before us like a canvas of despair, painted in shades of ash and blood under a sky that had forgotten how to be blue. Lord Cassius's army had positioned itself across the valley floor, a sea of corrupted banners and twisted metal that reflected the dimensional instability poisoning the air itself.
I stood atop the ridge overlooking the carnage to come, no longer needing to squint against the unnatural winds that carried the scent of otherworldly decay. My transformed vision could perceive layers of reality that others couldn't access—I saw not just the physical army below, but the spiritual parasites feeding on the soldiers' life force, the dimensional rifts being held open by sheer malevolent will.
"Three thousand men," Master Dorian reported, lowering his spyglass. "But many of them are no longer entirely human."
He was correct. Through my enhanced perception, I could see the truth of what Lord Cassius had done to his forces. Desperate to match supernatural power with conventional warfare, he had allowed demons to partially possess his soldiers. They were stronger now, faster, more vicious—but they were also slowly being consumed from within.
"They won't survive more than a few days," I observed. "The demonic essence will burn through their human forms like acid through silk."
"Does he know that?" Kael asked, checking his weapons one final time before the battle.
"He knows," I replied. "He simply doesn't care. Victory today is worth any cost in the future."
Behind us, our forces prepared for what would likely be the final confrontation of this war. We had perhaps eight hundred men—a mixture of loyal soldiers, desperate volunteers, and anyone brave or foolish enough to stand against an army of the possessed. They should have been terrified, and many were, but they held their ground because they trusted me to lead them to victory.
They had no idea what I had become to earn that trust.
"Seraphina," Aldric said quietly, moving to stand beside me. "Before this begins, I need to know—how much of you is still you?"
It was a fair question, and one I had been avoiding examining too closely. The binding ritual had changed me fundamentally, but I was still conscious, still capable of rational thought and emotional response. The demons bound to my will whispered constantly in my mind, offering their perspectives on the battle to come, but I remained in control of my actions.
"Enough," I said finally. "Though I can't promise that will remain true indefinitely."
"What do you mean?"
"The demons' influence grows stronger with use," I explained. "Every time I draw on their power, I become a little less human and a little more like them. Eventually, the balance will shift beyond recovery."
"How long do we have?" Kael asked, joining our conversation.
"Days, perhaps weeks. It depends on how extensively I need to use the bound demons in the coming battle."
Through the spiritual bond connecting us, I felt both men's determination to find a way to preserve my humanity, their refusal to accept that transformation might be permanent. Their loyalty was touching, but ultimately naive. Some changes couldn't be undone, and this was one of them.
A horn sounded from the valley below—Lord Cassius's forces were beginning their advance. I could see him at their head, mounted on a warhorse that flickered between dimensions, sometimes appearing as a normal animal, and sometimes revealing itself as something with too many eyes and teeth made of shadow.
"It's time," I said, drawing the ceremonial sword that had belonged to my mother. The blade hummed with necromantic energy, eager to taste the blood of enemies.
As I descended toward the battlefield, my bound demons began manifesting around me—not as independent entities, but as extensions of my will made visible. They appeared as writhing shadows with burning eyes, incorporeal hands reaching through dimensional barriers to grasp at reality itself. The sight was terrifying enough to make some of our soldiers stumble, but it would serve as psychological warfare against the enemy.
The first clash came as our forces met in the center of the valley. Normal warfare might have favored the larger army, but this was no longer normal warfare. I raised my sword and spoke a single word in the demons' language, and dozens of enemy soldiers simply stopped.
Their souls, weakened by partial possession, couldn't resist the combined pull of thirteen major demons operating through my will. They stood frozen in place as their life force was drained away, then collapsed like empty shells while their spiritual essence was absorbed into my growing power.
"Dear gods," someone whispered behind me. "What has she become?"
I ignored the comment, focusing instead on the pattern of battle developing around us. Lord Cassius had anticipated supernatural resistance—his forces were arranged in formations designed to minimize the impact of mass spiritual attacks. Smart, but ultimately insufficient.
I gestured toward a cluster of enemy soldiers attempting to flank our left wing. The ground beneath them cracked open, and skeletal hands emerged to drag them down into temporary graves. They would suffocate in the earth, but their deaths would fuel the next phase of my assault.
"Seraphina!" Aldric's voice cut through the chaos of battle. "Behind you!"
I spun to find one of Lord Cassius's pet demons materializing directly behind me—a creature of crystalline spines and acid breath that had bypassed my supernatural defenses through sheer speed. It lunged with claws extended, aiming for my throat.
I caught it by the neck with my bare hand and spoke another word of power. The creature's own malevolent energy turned against it, consuming its form from within until nothing remained but a pile of smoking ash.
"Impressive," said a familiar voice. "But ultimately futile."
Lord Cassius himself approached through the carnage, his partially transformed appearance even more disturbing than I had expected. The dimensional energies he had been channeling had warped his human form, giving him additional eyes that saw into other realms and hands that could manipulate reality itself.
"Uncle," I said with mock courtesy. "You're looking different."
"As are you, my dear niece," he replied. "Though I suspect my transformation is somewhat more voluntary than yours."
"You think I was forced into this power?"
"I think you were manipulated," he said, beginning to circle me as our respective armies clashed around us. "Your father's final gambit, using your compassion and sense of duty to turn you into the very thing you've spent your life fighting against."
His words carried enough truth to sting. I had become something monstrous to protect those I loved, but the line between salvation and damnation was thinner than I had imagined.
"At least I'm not sacrificing my soldiers for temporary power," I countered.
"Aren't you?" He gestured toward the battlefield, where my necromantic abilities were turning the tide through displays of otherworldly violence. "How many of your people will die today because you chose to embrace darkness rather than find another way?"
"There was no other way!"
"There's always another way," he said, raising his weapon—a sword that seemed to exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously. "You simply chose the path that felt most like revenge."
We engaged in combat that transcended physical movement, our weapons clashing across multiple planes of existence as we fought with power that could reshape reality itself. Each blow sent shockwaves through the dimensional barriers, threatening to tear new rifts in the fabric of existence.
I was stronger—the binding ritual had given me access to power that dwarfed his improvised transformations. But he was right about one thing: I was fighting as much for revenge as for protection, and that emotional investment made me reckless.
His blade found my shoulder, cutting through both flesh and spirit. The wound burned with otherworldly fire, and I felt some of my bound demons writhing in shared pain.
"You cannot win this way," he said, pressing his advantage. "Power without wisdom is just destruction wearing a crown."
"Then I'll be the most destructive queen in history," I snarled, and unleashed every demon at once.
The battlefield exploded into chaos as thirteen major demons materialized fully, no longer operating through my will but given temporary freedom to express their nature directly. They fell upon Lord
Cassius's forces with supernatural fury, tearing through possessed soldiers and dimensional parasites alike.
But they also turned on our troops, unable to distinguish between friend and enemy in their hunger for destruction. I watched in horror as creatures I had bound to my service began slaughtering the people
I had sworn to protect.
"Control them!" Kael shouted, cutting down a demon that was advancing on a group of wounded soldiers.
I tried, but the effort of maintaining thirteen separate bindings while fighting Lord Cassius was beyond even my enhanced abilities. One by one, I felt the demons slipping from my direct control, becoming independent agents of chaos rather than tools of warfare.
"This is what happens," Lord Cassius said, his voice carrying over the supernatural carnage, "when mortals try to wield power they don't understand."
He was right, and I hated him for it. In my desperation to save everyone, I had created a situation that might destroy everything instead.
But as I watched the demons ravaging the battlefield, as I felt my control slipping away completely, I realized something that Lord Cassius had missed: sometimes the only way to save something is to be willing to destroy it first.
I raised my sword toward the chaotic sky and spoke the one word that would end this battle permanently —a word that would bind every demon on the battlefield, including myself, to the deepest pits of the otherworld.
It was time to learn whether salvation and damnation were truly different things, or simply two names for the same necessary choice.