Chapter 61 - The Duke Or The Prince?

Yvonne looked around and found herself in an empty space with nothing around her.

BLANK

That was what was around her.

An empty space with absolutely nothing.

This reminded her of the first time she met Asmodeus and her doubt that this was all his doing got even stronger now.

'The last thing I remember was crying on the floor after that man left.' She looked down and stared at her hands.

Having switched bodies twice, she was now aware of what her first step should be in this situation.

'I'm still in adult Yvonne's body.' She sighed while looking at the long and pretty fingers.

'But where the hell am I?' She felt like hitting the blue bird who keeps moving her around from one body to another.

"I warned you to stay away!" An eerie whisper sounded next to her ear.

Yvonne took a few feet away from the voice that caused her entire body to shiver at that moment.

"Who are you and why do you keep coming back to scare me!?" She screamed in the direction that she had moved away from.

A second after her outburst, Yvonne could see a faint glowing light in the position a few feet away from her.

"I keep warning you of the terrible fate you will meet but why do you ignore me all the time?" The shapeless white figure lashed out at her.

The voice she could hear now had a rough grating tone to it which made Yvonne grimace.

She wished that the phantom never spoke again but at the same time she desired to hear what exactly it was trying to warn her about.

"I already know that this body dies of a weird sickness after she is placed under house arrest. So what exactly are you trying to warn me about?" Yvonne narrowed her eyes and tried to get more information out of the phantom.

According to the script she had read, Yvonne along with her two best friends tries to separate the love birds by plotting against them.

Yvonne was supposed to keep Lady Hilda busy while Glennise would drug the Crown Prince, Fritzen and Princess Felicia would make sure that the guards were away.

However, the power of love overcame all obstacles and Glennise was thrown into prison for trying to drug the future King of Rosenhyde.

Lady Hilda who was at the Roschester Mansion where now Yvonne lived had suddenly fainted which caused the servants to alert their master.

Draco and Fritzen who were deciding how to deal with Glennise rushed to the Grand Duke's estate only to find Hilda lying unconscious on the bed.

Yvonne who had been panicking when she saw the pale face of the woman was now in tears to see her husband fretting over the health of someone else's betrothed.

Thinking of this part of the story, Yvonne remembered an excerpt that was still fresh in her mind from when she had read the script.

'Yvonne St. Claire, the woman who shed uncontrollable tears when she saw the man she loved dearly, showing his concern and anxiety for the other woman lying unconscious on the bed.' 

She muttered those words when she realized this was what incident her body was referring to when she spoke to Draco earlier.

However, Yvonne was still not sure of this matter. 

Draco himself had mentioned her liking the prince so she was all the more confused.

"Did Yvonne from the story love the Duke or the Prince?" She wondered while rubbing her cheek.

Her doubt was valid because it wasn't mentioned who 'the man she loved dearly' was.

The phantom seemed to have heard what she had said and then appeared before her eyes in an instant.

"You want to know who she liked?" An eerie chuckle erupted from the white gaseous being.

Yvonne tried to calm her heart down and nodded despite her fears.

She was curious to know what exactly was inside the mind of Yvonne from the story to have done so much to help Glennise out.

That lady helped her best friend to get closer to the prince while blocking Hilda's path every single time.

Seeing how she was helping someone else, then that meant she had no romantic interest in the prince.

'Does this mean that Yvonne liked Draco and that was why she lashed out when she met him?' Yvonne tried to find some meaning in the charade she witnessed earlier.

Now she had an inkling of who Yvonne actually liked though she wasn't 100 percent sure.

"Whether she loved him or the prince is not vital right now!" The phantom yelled at Yvonne for getting sidetracked from the main issue.

Yvonne flinched when the loud grating voice reached her ears.

"I don't have a lot of time and I am losing power every single second that I am visible to you!" As it was saying this, its body flickered like a light that would go out very soon.

Yvonne was surprised to hear its words and then stayed silent to listen to what it had to say.

"Remember to stay away from him if you don't want to die a miserable death." Its voice grew lighter and sounded as though it was in a lot of pain.

"Yvonne died due to a strange illness in the story, what does that have anything to do with that worthless man?" Yvonne frowned when she heard the accusations made by the phantom.

The story only had a couple of lines to depict the death of Yvonne St. Claire wife of Grand Duke Draco Roschester.

The news that everyone received after her death was how she had suffered in silence trying to fight her sickness and finally succumbed to it.

Yvonne's thoughts were interrupted when she saw the phantom change its colors from its pale white until it became almost translucent.

Hearing what she had said, the phantom burst into laughter but ended up wheezing like an old man.

"That was the news that was spread in the society… Do you want to know what actually happened to this body that led to its death?" It moved closer to Yvonne until her nose almost touched the fading gases.

The crippling fear of the unknown had taken over Yvonne and she could not move a single muscle even when all she wanted to do was nod her head.

Not caring about her trembling body, the phantom spoke while hovering right in front of her face.

"Yvonne in the story was made to… Argghh…!" The next words Yvonne heard were just a loud deafening scream that almost wrecked her eardrums.

She closed her eyes to shield them from the blinding light that erupted from the phantom.

"What a troublesome child!?" A familiar sarcastic and mocking voice made her open her eyes once again.

Yvonne ignored the bird flying in her direction and turned around to search for the phantom who was about to reveal a secret regarding the death of her body in the story.

"I've sent it far away." Asmodeus uttered when he saw her actions.

Her eyes widened when she heard his statement and then growled at him.

"First you drop me in that child's body then you move me here!" She pointed at the new body she was inside right now.

"Then I am about to find out an important secret and you meddle once again?" She snarled at the man who was used to being revered by these lower beings.

"Watch your mouth! Do you even know where you are?" He snapped at her and flew closer to her face.

"In the future! Where you sent me!" She yelled back without any fear because he was just a tiny bird right now.

"You are in an illusion that the entity has put you inside. Nothing here is real." He announced and this made Yvonne halt.

Everything she witnessed earlier seemed so real that she had not doubted its authenticity for even a split second.

'Is that why it said that it's losing power when it appeared before me?' She recalled the phantom's words which seemed like a reasonable explanation to her.

However, Asmodeus who heard her thoughts frowned more than earlier.

"It just wants to possess the body that is an empty shell right now because you willingly followed it here!" He pecked her head with his beak, making Yvonne flinch due to the pain.

"Whatever it told you was all a lie. Do not believe it and don't follow what it says." He warned her in a serious voice.

Yvonne stopped rubbing her head and stared at Asmodeus suspiciously.

Feeling her doubtful eyes on his, he chirped louder and uttered a chant in his language.

"Forget that it ever happened and you'll live in peace." His words that were meant to be a blessing reached her ears before her body began fading away.

Yvonne looked at her hands which were vanishing as each second passed and then she glanced at the bird.

"Go back to the body that you were meant to be in." He pecked her head once again and this time her entire body disappeared.

Before she faded away, her last words echoed in his ears.

"I never followed the phantom here." Yvonne yelled as she went poof.

Asmodeus watched as the surroundings started to crumble and he too flapped his wings and disappeared from this alternate world.

"I need to keep a sharper watch over her." He decided as he went back to see whether Yvonne had reached her former childlike body once again.