Princess Of The Skulls - Chapter 96: Chapter 96

Three months into our continental tour, I had learned that dimensional tears were like snowflakes—no two were exactly alike, and each one required a completely different approach to stabilize. I stood at the edge of the latest fracture, a massive wound in reality that had torn through the heart of Prince Erik's capital city, turning the royal quarter into a nightmare landscape where past and future bled together in impossible ways.
"The temporal distortion is worse than anything we've encountered," Kael observed, his corrupted arm pulsing with dark light as it responded to the dimensional chaos. "People are aging decades in hours, then reverting to children before dying of old age again."
"It's not temporal distortion," I corrected, studying the magical patterns with eyes that had grown increasingly sensitive to dimensional energy over the past months. "It's temporal fragmentation. The past and future of this location exist simultaneously, creating loops that trap anyone caught within them."
"Can you fix it?"
"Yes, but not without cost." I could already feel the dimensional work this would require, the amount of personal energy it would demand. "This one's going to hurt."
Prince Erik emerged from his temporary shelter in the outer city, his face haggard with exhaustion and desperation. The charming prince who had sent marriage proposals months ago was gone, replaced by a man who had watched his kingdom tear itself apart at the seams of reality.
"Your Majesty," he said, bowing deeply. "Thank you for coming. My court wizards have been completely useless—three of them are trapped in temporal loops, and the rest refuse to go near the fracture."
"Smart of them," I replied, beginning to remove the most powerful skull relics from around my neck. "This kind of working could kill an unprepared mage in minutes."
"And you're prepared?"
"I've had practice." I handed Kael the anchor relic, feeling the familiar warmth of our magical connection activate. "Stay close but not too close. If I start to fade, pull me back to the present moment."
"How will I know when you're in trouble?"
"You'll know." I leaned forward to kiss him, drawing strength from the contact. "Trust the connection between us."
The working began like all the others—with a step into chaos. But this fracture was different, more complex than the simple temporal distortions I had faced before. As I entered the dimensional wound, I found myself experiencing not just the history of this location, but multiple possible futures as well.
I saw Prince Erik's kingdom as it had been centuries ago, a small trading post beside a river. I saw it as it was now, a prosperous capital torn apart by magical catastrophe. But I also saw dozens of potential futures—some where the city was rebuilt stronger than before, others where it crumbled into dust and was forgotten by history.
Using the skull magic, I began to weave these temporal fragments into a single, stable timeline. The work was exhausting, requiring me to hold multiple realities in my mind simultaneously while guiding them toward convergence. Each skull relic burned with power as the spirits within lent their strength to the working.
But as I neared completion, I felt something else within the fracture—a presence that shouldn't have been there. Ancient, malevolent, and achingly familiar.
"You cannot heal what I have broken, little necromancer."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, a whisper that seemed to originate from the dimensional tear itself. I felt my blood turn to ice as I recognized the signature of the ancient evil I had supposedly defeated months ago.
"You thought my death would end the chaos? Foolish child. My destruction was merely the beginning. Each fracture you heal only channels more of my essence into the dimensional fabric. Soon, I will be everywhere at once, unkillable because I will exist in every moment."
The revelation hit me like a physical blow. I hadn't been healing dimensional tears—I had been spreading the ancient evil's influence across the entire continent. Every stabilization work had been another step in its resurrection, a process I had unknowingly been completing with each act of magical heroism.
"The irony is exquisite, is it not? The Queen of Bones, savior of kingdoms, architect of my ultimate victory.
You have done more to serve my purposes than any cultist ever managed."
I felt my grip on the temporal fragments slipping as despair and horror threatened to overwhelm me. If the ancient evil was right, then everything I had done since its supposed defeat had been advancing its cause. The dimensional tours, the stabilization workings, the political alliances—all of it had been part of a larger pattern I had been too blind to see.
But then I felt Kael's presence through our magical connection, his love and faith in me burning like a beacon in the dimensional chaos. The corrupted veins in his arm, touched by otherworldly forces, gave him insight into the ancient evil's deception.
"Don't listen to it," his voice came through the connection, clear and strong. "It's lying. I can feel the truth through the corruption—you're not spreading its influence, you're containing it. Each working doesn't free more of its essence, it traps more of it within stable dimensional boundaries."
Understanding flooded through me like lightning. The ancient evil wasn't being resurrected by my workings—it was being imprisoned by them. Each dimensional tear I sealed was another fragment of its scattered consciousness trapped within stable reality. The voice I was hearing wasn't the whisper of approaching victory, but the desperate fury of a being that felt its final defeat approaching.
"You're afraid," I said, projecting the thought directly at the presence within the fracture. "You're terrified because you know that when I seal the last dimensional tear, you'll be completely contained within reality's framework, subject to physical laws and mortal limitations."
The ancient evil's rage exploded through the dimensional space, but I was ready for it now. Using the skull magic and the anchor of Kael's love, I completed the temporal convergence while simultaneously weaving a prison of dimensional stability around the fragments of consciousness trapped within.
When I emerged from the fracture, the royal quarter had returned to normal. Buildings stood in their proper time, people moved at natural speeds, and the deadly loops of temporal repetition were broken.
But I also carried with me the knowledge that the real battle was just beginning.
"It's still alive," I told Kael as he helped me steady myself after working. "The ancient evil—we didn't destroy it. We scattered it across the dimensional fabric."
"But you're containing it," he said, understanding the truth I had discovered. "Each work doesn't release more of it—it imprisons more of it."
"Exactly. But that means the final working, the one that seals the last dimensional tear, will also be the final confrontation. It will throw everything it has at stopping me because it knows that success means its permanent imprisonment."
Prince Erik approached us, his face bright with gratitude and relief. "Your Majesty, I cannot express how grateful—"
"Save your gratitude," I interrupted, my mind already racing ahead to the implications of what I had learned. "How many more dimensional tears remain on the continent?"
"According to our latest reports, perhaps a dozen."
"Then we have a dozen more chances to weaken it before the final confrontation." I turned to Kael, seeing my determination reflected in his eyes. "Send word to every kingdom we've helped. I want their best mages, their strongest warriors, and their most powerful magical artifacts. When we face the last dimensional tear, we're going to need everything they can provide."
"You're planning a war," he observed.
"I'm planning to finish what we started." I felt the skull relics pulse with agreement, their whispered voices joining in a chorus of anticipation. "The ancient evil wants to use the dimensional tears as a pathway to resurrection. Instead, we're going to use them as a prison."
The continental campaign was no longer about healing dimensional damage—it was about preparing for the ultimate magical working, one that would either save the world or destroy it completely. And somewhere in the space between those possibilities, I would discover whether love was strong enough to anchor a queen through the end of everything.