Princess Of The Skulls - Chapter 79: Chapter 79

For a moment that stretched like eternity, Father stared at my outstretched hand. Through the power connecting us, I could feel the war raging within him—centuries of isolation and self-imposed exile battling against the possibility of a connection he had thought lost forever.
"You don't understand what you're asking," he said, but his voice carried less certainty than before. "The moment I lower my defenses, the moment I allow myself to hope for redemption, the power will surge beyond all control. I've seen it happen before."
"Then we face it together," I replied, maintaining my position despite the energy crackling between us.
"You've spent three hundred years fighting this battle alone. Maybe it's time to trust someone else to share the burden."
Around us, the battle had reached a turning point. Lord Cassius's forces were in full retreat, the demonic influences that had corrupted them being systematically destroyed by the combined efforts of my spirit army and the Guardian-enhanced soldiers. But I could sense that this victory was merely the prelude to something far more dangerous.
Through the dimensional rifts that our power had torn in reality, I could feel other entities stirring— ancient things that had been waiting for exactly this kind of instability to manifest in the mortal world.
"The old ones are coming," Father said, confirming my fears. "Your transformation, combined with mine, has created a beacon that draws every supernatural predator within a thousand dimensions. If we don't seal the rifts immediately, this world will become a feeding ground for beings that make us look like children."
"Then teach me how to seal them," I said, taking a step closer despite the dangerous energy field surrounding him. "Show me what you've learned in three centuries of binding this power."
"The cost," he began, then stopped as understanding dawned in his ancient eyes. "You're not asking me to give up my power. You're asking me to share it."
"I'm asking you to trust me," I corrected. "The way Mother trusted you before you let fear drive you to betrayal."
The words hit him like a physical blow, and I felt the moment when his carefully constructed defenses began to crumble. The guilt and self-loathing he had carried for centuries poured out through our connection, but beneath it, I sensed something else—a core of love and protection that had driven every terrible choice he had made.
"She knew," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Your mother knew what I was from the beginning, and she loved me anyway. When she discovered what you were becoming, she tried to find a way to break the cycle without destroying you. Her death wasn't meant to be permanent."
"What do you mean?"
"She was trying to bind her soul to the skull relics, to become a guardian spirit that could guide you through the transformation. But the ritual went wrong, and instead of binding her spirit, it shattered it across multiple dimensions." His form began to shift again, becoming more human as ancient pain overwhelmed his supernatural nature. "I've spent twenty years trying to gather the pieces of her soul, trying to find a way to bring her back."
The revelation staggered me. Everything I had believed about my mother's death, about Father's motivations, about the nature of the skull relics themselves, was more complex than I had imagined.
"The skulls aren't just weapons," I realized. "They're fragments of her consciousness, trying to guide me toward choices she would have made."
"Yes," he said, lowering his hands as the energy field around him began to dissipate. "And if we work together, if we can successfully merge our power instead of fighting each other, we might finally have enough strength to complete her resurrection."
Through the spiritual bonds connecting me to my allies, I felt their reactions to this revelation. Kael's fierce protectiveness, Aldric's political mind calculating the implications, Master Dorian's scholarly excitement at the possibilities it presented.
But before any of us could respond, a new voice cut through our conversation—cold, amused, and terrifying in its familiarity.
"How touching," Lord Cassius said, his form shimmering as he approached through a dimensional rift. "A family reunion at the end of the world."
But the thing wearing Cassius's face was no longer human. The demonic influences that had been corrupting his forces had finally claimed him completely, transforming him into something that existed partly in our reality and partly in the spaces between dimensions.
"Did you think," he continued, his voice carrying harmonics that made reality itself recoil, "that I would allow you to seal the rifts before my masters could claim this world? The chaos you've created is exactly what we've been waiting for."
As he spoke, I felt other presences emerging from the dimensional tears—ancient entities that had been imprisoned beyond the mortal realm for millennia, drawn by the instability our power had created.
"Now," Father said urgently, reaching for my hand, "if we're going to save this world, it has to be now."
I grasped his hand without hesitation, and the moment our power connected, I understood what he had been trying to tell me about the true nature of our abilities.