Second Female Leads' Playbook

I did have a dream of my past. The night before my execution in my second life. The night where the high priest came to give me one final send off. I covered my face with my arm and ġrȯȧnėd. Of all the things I could dream about why that night? 

I stayed there for a few minutes and then I collected myself. I started to pack and placed everything back to my luggage on my horse. 

"Come on, Isobel. Let's set off!" I was pretty sure I could arrive earlier than Rachelle even this road took a bit of a detour. 

According to my memories, Rachelle first met a prince who was on the way to a temple for blessings. Then on the second day of the journey, Rachelle found a wounded priest on the road. Thus she spent some time healing him and taking care of him. That priest turned out to be a priest of the fire temple, so Rachelle could enter the fire temple without any troubles. I wonder if that priest ever regretted letting Rachelle into the temple. He was kind of responsible for the loss of their temple's treasure. 

Of course details of each life were slightly different as I acted differently, but the track of Rachelle's life was never far off as if she was a character in a novel with all the plots planned out for her. And she was merely doing her job of acting them out. Certain events must happen, meeting the prince and the priest of fire being two of them. 

While I was contemplating, I arrived at the town the fire temple was situated. I decided to settle down in an inn first and then walked around town. The town where a temple was situated was like a tourist spot, there must be something interesting to see. And I missed shopping without Rachelle's chit chatting next to me. It's horrendous having an out of this world beauty next to you when you went shopping. 

The sun was setting when I had shopped to my heart's content, I chose a restaurant for dinner. I occupied a table next to the window overseeing the busy street. I was reading the menu when I heard a noise across from me. Thinking it's Isobel, I looked up to find the high priest sitting across from me reading the menu. I nearly shrieked. 

"Your Grace, what are you doing here?" I hushed. 

"Dinner?" he replied with a raised eyebrow. "High priests of darkness are human too, no matter what the myths said I ate." 

"Yeah, I know that." I closed my eyes and nodded. I knew it's not up to me to say, but judging from him popping up every so often I knew by now he could just slip out of his temple whenever he liked. I said with clenched teeth, "I mean why are you in the town where the fire temple is situated? If you are so free, you can very well spy by yourself! You don't even need me!"

"But it's boring," he stated in a matter of fact manner. "Boring stuff should be done by my underlings. If the boss does it himself, what are underlings for." He smiled innocently. 

"Then why are you here, my boss?"

"As I said I was bored." 

Oh the shoes being displayed in the show window over the street looked good. Look that girl had a nice dress. The lace really complimented her ... face...

I dropped the menu I was holding onto the table, tumbling the glass of water, water was about to splash onto my dress. I should do a simple wind spell to solve the problem but my hands were shaking. At the last moment, the high priest snapped his fingers and the glass returned to its original position. 

"Who did you see that scared you that much?" he asked while looking out of the window. 

"No, I am not scared," I said as calmly as I could. Holding my trembling hands together. "I was just... shocked. I didn't think I would see her here." 

It's the girl who had stabbed me to death in my previous life. I had been pouring tea for Rachelle at that time, so I had my back to the door. When that girl went into the room, no one was alarmed. It had been a tea party, they all thought she was here for the party. When she walked towards our table, they thought she was here to greet Rachelle. And then she took out a knife. Rachelle hid behind me just in time and I was stabbed. Not just once. The feel when blood was bleeding out from my neck, from my back. The feel when my body turned colder bit by bit. I clamped my hand over my neck to comfort myself that there wasn't a wound there. 

"Odette?" the high priest's hand covered mine. "Odette, it's over. You're not there. It's over." 

I slowly regained my conscious by focusing on the hand covering mine. The memory of being stabbed to death was still very fresh in my mind. So everything that triggered such memory pulled me back to that time. My response would not be that huge as time slowly went by. Just like how I could tolerate burnt meat instead of throwing up immediately back when I was in my second life. 

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head to get the memories out of my head. Giving him a weak smile, I said, "I am alright now, your Grace. Thank you."

"Just what is frightening you? The person who killed you in your previous life?" 

"What are you talking about, your Grace. If I could really remember my previous life, I would not be such a loser now." I lowered my eyes and back to reading my menu. 

If he really wasn't joking, I would not know how to face him. I thought we were friends, but he never showed up to give even the slightest help in my third or fourth lives. Of course he was joking. He had to be joking.

But why did I kept reliving this same life? This felt more like a curse, something a high priest of darkness could do. 

Stop thinking, Odette. 

"Let's order, your Grace." I tried to smile like how I usually did.. I certainly hope I did.