The Soulless Duchess

Chapter 1

1. LOVE IS A LIE

The man she loved was panting on top of someone else.

“What took you so long?”

“Ugh... I wanted to get here more than anything in the world.”

Their forms were entangled and exposed. They kissed hungrily as if to make up for the time wasted on small talk—their hands groping, peeling clothes off.

Flushed faces peeked through the gap in the door as they ran their hands ceaselessly over each other.

But Yvona could only stand there, rooted and unable to look away from the scene unfolding before her.

She couldn’t slap him across the face or drag him out by the hair, as wronged women typically did under such circumstances.

Was it because Yvona’s fiancé had his arms around her cousin, a close friend since childhood?

Or was it because said cousin wasn’t a woman?

***

Yvona Bote was just an ordinary woman of noble birth. She was cute, but she didn’t have much else going for her. Her unassuming demeanor didn’t earn her much attention among the aristocracy.

However, she had one remarkable feature—her body. The ample bosom accentuated by the plunging neckline currently in fashion among society tended to turn heads.

“Lady Yvona. My... you’re quite extraordinary. Haha, I’m referring to your big heart.”

“Men who know a thing or two prefer a generous lady like yourself, rather than just a pretty face.”

Some stole a peek while greeting her, while others openly gawped. Some even dared to compliment her chest outright, which Yvona rightly took as harassment.

At a time when Yvona was about to write off the entire male species as pigs, she met Gaspar, son of Duke Gieze. He knew about Yvona’s parentage—that her family was ennobled due to their gifts of summoning magic. He also knew she was a summoner herself.

And he never once stared at her chest when speaking to her.

He sees me, not just my body.

Unlike other men, he did not turn into an immature schoolboy or a predator. Gaspar’s conduct left a deep impression on her. She felt acknowledged as a person rather than being graded like a piece of meat.

Yvona resumed studying summoning magic, which she had briefly dabbled in for her father’s attention and then abandoned, for the sole reason that Gaspar showed interest in it. She honed her summoning skills and used them for his benefit.

“Everyone compares me to that Azentine fellow. They say we’re both twenty-five-year-old heirs to duchies and yet complete opposites! ‘One is the very picture of mediocrity, and the other is the master of the Holy Sword,’ they say. His Imperial Majesty even joked about marrying the princess to him and giving him the throne instead of me, his own nephew! That’s cruel, even for a joke.”

As the emperor of Parama did not have sons, Gaspar, the princess’s cousin, was the most likely candidate for the next emperor. But he lacked distinction in every way, whereas Claude Azentine, a scion of the rival duchy, had the fervent support of society.

“Yvona, can’t you do this for me?”

She could not refuse his anguished plea. Yvona wanted to help him, as he had given her new hope in life.

With Yvona’s active cooperation, Gaspar paraded around the creatures she summoned and took credit for her work.

“Now people call you the golden summoner!”

Gaspar took the credit and glory that was rightfully Yvona’s, but it made her smile to see him happy. He was the sun and she the shadow he cast; the brighter he shined, the more defined she felt.

But it didn’t end there. Gaspar was insatiable.

“Damn it, I want to be more powerful than Azentine!”

Gaspar felt inferior next to Claude Azentine, whose birth was prophesized by an oracle centuries ago. Showing prodigious talent since boyhood, his summoning skills were exceptional.

How could Yvona, who had only recently resumed her summoning studies, measure up?

Gaspar’s irritation grew daily. His gentle affection for her dried up, and he went so far as to bring up the Bote family’s secret text.

“Yvona, I heard about the Bote family secret.”

Mana, or magical power, was what Yvona needed to become stronger. She needed several times more mana than she had now to summon creatures of a higher rank and keep them in this world long enough to engage in battle.

But those who experimented with spells in the secret text invariably met miserable ends. Even if they didn’t die immediately, they suffered from terrible diseases for the rest of their lives. This was why the secret text was out of the question.

“My lord, there’s something you don’t know about using the secret text—”

“You will never catch up to Azentine at this rate, Yvona. What are you waiting for?”

Yvona was speechless in the face of Gaspar’s anger. He stormed out and returned to his estate.

Left alone, Yvona worried whether his love for her would fade. To make matters worse, terrible news reached the mansion: rumors spread that the demon army was trying to resurrect their master on this continent again.

Lord Claude Azentine was the first to step forward to stop the demon.

If the demon is resurrected, Lord Gaspar and my cousin Tristan will have to go to war...

Her fiancé Gaspar was the person she loved most in the world, and her cousin Tristan had been a constant source of support in her life.

After days and piles of scrawled notes, Yvona sat clutching the safest magic circle she could make with the secret text.

“If successful, I’ll be able to obtain an immense amount of mana, enough to summon the divine beasts.”

But if she failed, there was no telling how she would be made to pay.

I’m scared, but I must do this…for the people I need to protect.

She gathered mana into her trembling hands. The complex magic circle, adorned with ancient characters and countless patterns, slowly began to glow. Gradually, Yvona felt mana flowing toward her.

Just as she let out a sigh of relief, a sinister glow rose from the magic circle. The moment she noticed this, mana crashed down on her like a waterfall.

“Aaaaah!”

Only then did it dawn on her that this experiment had no hope of succeeding.

Yvona fell to her knees in indescribable pain. Blood flowed from every orifice in her body. Unable to contain her agony, she bit down so hard that her molars sunk into her gums. Her fingernails dug deep into her flesh, but she didn’t feel it amidst the overpowering pain of mana tearing into her body.

“Hnn... hng…!”

Eventually, the pain subsided along with the mana level. Yvona remembered blacking out several times. As the agony passed after what felt like an eternity and the experiment was over, her whole body ached.

No. This isn’t residual pain...

Yvona quickly examined her body and despaired. She had succeeded in getting what she needed from the experiment, but it came at a price.

Pustules and wrinkles covered her youthful twenty-year-old body. She lost all her hair, and black spots appeared all over her skin. She began to lose sensation in parts of her body and often found herself unable to breathe.

That wasn’t the end of it. Yvona intuitively realized the truth: I won’t get to live for much longer.

* * *

Afterward, Yvona left with Gaspar to fight the demon army.

Gaspar introduced her not as his betrothed Yvona Bote, but as an assistant in wielding magic. Soldiers saw the marks around her eyes that couldn’t be completely concealed with bandages and the hood pulled over her head. They looked at her with anything from pity to disgust.

Enduring those looks, Yvona fought alongside Gaspar against the demon army. With the divine beasts Yvona summoned—and the mighty sword of Lord Claude Azentine at the forefront—Parama thwarted the resurrection of the Demon King.

“I never knew how powerful you’d become, Lord Gaspar!”

“To think you managed to summon the King of Divine Beasts! Just when I thought we had no one to count on but Lord Claude of the ancient prophecy!”

Hailing him as the savior of the world, people showered him with riches. Gaspar received the most praise among them all for summoning the King of Divine Beasts. His heroics finally earned him the title of Crown Prince and the right to ascend the imperial throne of Parama.

No one knew the truth: Gaspar was able to shine like the sun thanks to his shadow Yvona.

But Gaspar and Tristan knew. They knew she had sacrificed herself to prevent the Demon King’s resurrection. No one acknowledged her sacrifice, but she protected the two men. They knew what she’d done for them.

And that was enough—or so she thought.

And this is the thanks I get.

The relationship between her fiancé and cousin was something she never suspected—something she thought was just a close friendship between future in-laws. They knew each other before she was engaged, and she believed they looked out for each other to ultimately benefit her.

Why did I have to find out the truth just as my life is about to end?

She could tell from the seizure she’d just had that her end was nigh. She’d come to see her cousin one last time before her death. She had not announced her arrival and planned to say goodbye to him as he lay sleeping. She did not want to wake him and see the sorrow on his face.

“As I’ve said numerous times, you’re the only one I love, Tristan. I’ve never been interested in women, and that witch—”

Time slowed for Yvona as the next words tumbled out of Gaspar’s lips:

“She’s going to die soon. Such a pity. If she’d been well, we could’ve had a child that looked like you and me.”

She recalled what Gaspar had once said.

“Your fathers were identical twins. I guess that’s how you and Tristan came to look so similar.”

Yvona realized in that moment that Gaspar’s courtship with her was a well-calculated move from the start. Bote held value to him as a summoner and a uterus to bear a child resembling him and his lover.

People said betrayal was never forgivable. “Love doesn’t change,” they said.

But Yvona knew that this did not apply to her.

He did cheat on me, but his love never changed.

He had no love for her in the first place.

A thunderbolt of shock seized her body. She thought she had a few more days, but her body could not withstand the shock. Seizures ensued.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end… sacrificing everything to end up like this.

They would have been nothing without me...

Even if they used her without mercy, she expected them to feel at least a twinge of guilt. She expected them to cherish her out of remorse for the life she devoted to them. That was the very least they could do.

“Let’s not talk about Yvona.”

“Don’t feel bad because she’s your cousin. Who’s worse off than the two of us? We love each other, and yet we cannot marry.”

Her knees, weakened by despair, buckled. Her body crashed to the ground, but she felt no pain. Soon after, her consciousness sunk into darkness.