I was contemplating how I should spend my fifth life.

Yes, my fifth life. I was living out the same life for the fifth time. I had experienced burning to death, guillotine, hanging and being stabbed to death. And all my tragic endings were related to one person, my stepsister Rachelle.

Today was the day Rachelle's mother married my father, Duke Cecil. It was the end of my pampered heiress life. After experiencing everything for four times, I knew I was not the loved pampered heiress I thought I was. I was just a tool. A tool to connect two most powerful families on the continent.

Father did not love me. If Rachelle who was more docile, more beautiful and more well-tempered could replace me, then so be it. With Rachelle as a comparison, I was just a disappointment. Someone who was known to have a bad temper, an airhead who only knew to spend money. As time went by, I was just someone who brought disgrace to the family. They would have disowned me if their pride allowed them to.

I had been a childish, spoiled heiress through and through in my first life. I had looked down on Rachelle, I thought she was just a silly country girl with no manners. She would never be on the same par as me. She would even make me look superior. I had been childish like that. But I was wrong, I was the one acting as a stepping stone for Rachelle.

Rachelle had perfect manners and temperament as opposed to my well known bad temper. Rachelle was a beauty whereas I was just someone with pleasing features. Rachelle had more talents in magic than me. Rachelle shone in every aspects while I shivered in her shadows.

This was not what I had expected. I was not supposed to be the one hovering in the shadows. My pride could not take that. I had been brimming with envy. When even my fiance fell for Rachelle and told my father he would like to marry Rachelle instead, that was the final straw. I became the evil villainess in every romance story.

Looking back, I knew it was childish and not worth it. What I had been doing was just a pathetic joke to Rachelle.

But did I deserve the way I met my death? To be burnt alive on a stake in front of everyone? Do you know how painful it was to be burnt? Do you know how it felt to smell the way your skin and tissues turning to ashes? Do you know the despair of knowing your life being burnt away bit by bit?

I had never harmed anyone physically. It was all just angry words and hysterical fits like every pampered spoiled heiress who threw their tempers. The worst I did was trying to cheat in an attempt to win her in a magic duel. I had been quite silly really. That's how I had fallen into the trap of one of Rachelle's suitors and ended my tragic life. And started this never ending hell.

When I realized I had been reborn in my second life. I had been brimming with hatred and anger, I had wanted revenge. So much that my second life had ended much more quickly than my first.

I learned from my previous deaths. I decided to avoid Rachelle and her strings of suitors at all cost in my third life. Rachelle was like the protagonist in a story. The gods were all on her side, as well as strings of suitors who would do whatever Rachelle told them to do or hinted them to do. I lived the longest that life. In my quest to avoid Rachelle at all cost, I ran away from home and smuggled across the sea to the continent that hated people from our continent.

After seven years, I thought I could finally stop hiding in fear in a foreign country. I thought I could return to my home country. I had planned to settle in a tiny villa in the country side. As soon as I had bought my tiny villa, I was captured. I had been told my father whom I had not been in contact with for years was planning treason all along. And I must be helping out my father in secret.

As for my dear stepsister who had been the perfect daughter to my dear father all throughout the years, of course she knew nothing of that sort! She was as pure as snow! She was innocent! I had been told that my punishment got even worse in the attempt of slandering the sacred Empress Rachelle. As expected of the evil stepsister who bullied Rachelle. I had no idea how I became the evil stepsister when I ran away as soon as Rachelle entered the scene. I was hanged.

I threw away my own pride in my fourth life. I could no longer bear this never ending reincarnation. I thought if I could die nicely like normal people, the torture would end. I pretended to be the best sister. Whatever Rachelle wanted, I gave it to her. I was even her best friend. I threw away myself in the process, I was just a puppet doing all of Rachelle's biding. It all ended when a devastated lady, whose childhood sweetheart dumped her for Rachelle, came rushing into our tea gathering in hysterics with a knife. Rachelle had hidden behind me just in time and I was stabbed. I never saw it coming, I had been busy serving Rachelle tea. I could not even utter a protective spell.

Thinking back to all my failed attempts to live, I had little hope for my fifth life.

That was when Sarah rushed into the room and cried, "They have arrived, Lady Odette!"

I should stop lying on my bed. I should start facing my fifth life.

Let's make this life my last. Let's die for real this time.

"Odette!" Rachelle said with a tiny blush on her face. Her voice turned softer as she her confidence wavered, like she was scared of me, "Can I call you Odette? I... I hope it's not too forward of me. But I really want us to be close sisters, Odette." She smiled docilely with her misty lavender eyes.

Before I could say anything, Father said, "Of course you can, Rachelle. We're all family." He smiled dotingly at her and eyed me meaningfully.

I took a sip from my cup of tea and smiled, "Of course, Rachelle. We're all family."

The wedding yesterday went by peacefully. Rachelle became the talk of capital with her stunning red dress, showing off her porcelain white complexion and deer like lavender eyes. I chose a simple dark blue dress, no longer stupid enough to think I could put her down by wearing a similar dress like what I had done in my first life.

I decided to stay as an innocent by-stander for now. I would no longer run away, it's proven not effective. I would no longer throw away myself and my pride just to please Rachelle, all that led to was me being used as a shield when danger came.

Came to think of it, my time acting as an antagonist to Rachelle in my second life was the happiest among my four lifetimes. Maybe I should consider acting as a villain again? Best live happily than to suffer if I had to repeat this over and over again.

I knew it's not Rachelle's fault, she was just simply blessed by gods. And I was the one in the wrong even if in the end I received more punishment than I deserved. I admitted I was just not a good-natured girl. I liked comparing myself with people around me and became a bitter, unlikable monster when people turned out to have it better than me. I never once appreciated what I already had. Thanks to someone pointing that out in one of my past lives, I had become very familiar with my own fault.

I decided to just follow the flow of life for now.

"Odette, what are you doing today? Let's hang out together! If... if you don't mind of course." Rachelle smiled shyly. "I don't know anyone here."

"Odette, bring Rachelle with you. Go meet some friends," Father commanded.

"Hannah is having a tea party tomorrow. I'll bring Rachelle with me."

I remembered Hannah's tea party. No matter what I changed, how I behaved, Hannah's tea party was an event that never changed. Rachelle would be humiliated there. No matter how hard I tried stopping the humiliation from taking place, it was like a fixed plot in a novel, it would always appear right along the track it was supposed to take place.

If I did not partake, the head of the group of people who humiliated Rachelle would become the heiress of another prominent family. If I took the side of Rachelle and tried to defend her, my well worded defense would be turned around so it seemed like I was subtly making sarcastic comments at Rachelle. Same rumors about how I hated my stepsister would spread the next day. I tried hiding once so that I would not be involved in the humiliation all together. When I returned, Rachelle would blink her watery deer like eyes and stared at me with silent condemnation. Everyone with eyes would then start to think I was the one ordering my friends to do this.

There's no getting away from this. No matter what I did, two things would come out of this tea party. Rumors would spread about me hating Rachelle and Rachelle would be saved from humiliation by one of her suitors.

From my experience with my last life, I could still be friend with Rachelle after this incident, but whether if she had been secretly hating on me, I had no idea.

What should I do this time? What if I didn't bring Rachelle to the tea party? In some lives I was forced by Father to take her there and after awhile I conceded because I wanted to humiliate her in the party like the evil stepsister I was. In other lives, I thought without me instigating the farce, the humiliation would not have taken place.

Of course not. I knew better now. There were some major events that must happen no matter what. They were like cornerstones of a building. Like the tea party where Rachelle must be humiliated and thus meeting one of her suitors.

Wait... suitors? Come to think of it, all those cornerstones involved Rachelle and her strings of suitors in some ways or other.

Could I change that? What if Rachelle was not able to meet her suitor number one in the tea party? Suitor number one was Lord Hank, the son of a Duke. That duke was a powerful priest serving the god of thunder.

Our country had different temples serving different gods. Every noble family had a god they served. The nobles send their offspring to study in the temples. The offspring that were chosen would become the priests or priestess of that temple. Usually the process of choosing priests and priestess involved them battling each other with their magic. People in our continent, unlike those living on the continent across the sea, could practice sorcery or magic which become more specialized after learning in a temple.

Most of our country's power was divided and held among the priest and priestess of different temples. That's why aristocrats always sent their children to the temples, in the hope that their children would become a priest or priestess. By coming to power, their family would also become more powerful. My family once had hope for me, but sadly I was not particularly gifted in magic. That's why in the end they turned to the more talented Rachelle even if she was not family by blood.

Back to Lord Hank, he was actually betrothed to Lady Florence from a young age and words had it that they were getting along really well. But he fell in love at first sight with Rachelle. Lady Florence was one of the priestess candidates for her god. On the day the final choosing had taken place in my previous lives, a letter that Hank had written about breaking their betrothal reached her. This affected her badly, she had been injured in the process and had lost the match. She did become a priestess, second in command to her opponent, but her face was scarred after that match.

It's really a tragedy. What if Hank didn't meet Rachelle in the tea party? Then Florence would not be distracted in her choosing a few days later. Their betrothal would end one way or another. Hank would meet Rachelle sooner or later and fall in love. But what if I could delay their meeting until Florence's choosing was over? It's really not worth it losing your place and your face for some fickle guy.

But how could I stop this tea party from happening?

"Lady Odette, where are you going?" Sarah, my maid, shrieked in horror as she saw me climbing out of the window.

"Shh!" I muttered a spell to stop Sarah from rousing the whole estate to watch me running from home in the middle of the night.

Sarah wanted to speak again, but found she was not able to. She frowned disapprovingly at me and mouthed, "Lady Odette! It's nearly midnight!"

"Yeah, I know. That's why I am choosing to sneak out now!" I rolled my eyes and then I muttered a sleeping spell before Sarah muttered one at me. Sarah collapsed on the floor. "Sleep tight! See you tomorrow!"

I climbed out of the window in my bedroom and jumped down. As soon as I jumped down, I muttered a simple wind spell to control my descent. The god my family served was the god of wind. I was sent to the wind temple when I was ten. Father expected me to at least grab a priestess position, not the higher ranking one, just a lowly one. But I could not even do that. I could master simple wind related spells, but more complex and advanced ones? I couldn't master them as well as my teachers and Father wanted.

But simple wind spells were enough for me to plan my escapade. In order to get away from going to the tea party, I needed to prepare a potion. A potion to make me look like I was feverish and sick. Very sick. A potion even healers could not discover I was faking it.

Why did I know the arts of god of darkness? From my second life where I really turned into a villainess through and through. You thought I used it on Rachelle? Of course not, due to the laziness of a certain someone, I had to do the work of the priestess of darkness. I could remember the ingredients for that potion and that's because I made more than twenty of them during that time.

I pulled the hood over my head to make sure it covered my face and walked quickly to the forest near my estate. The ingredients for the potion were just common herbs. I should be able to find them in the forest.

After a few hours, I had finally collected all the ingredients I needed. I was stretching out my cramped limbs when I noticed a crow staying on the branch of the tree next to me. It tilted its head when it saw me looking at it and then cawed. It then flapped its wings and flew away. When it flew by me, a black crow feather fluttered down and landed next to my leg.

I picked it up. The feather seemed to have a subdued golden hint when I flickered it under the moonlight.

"It can't be... No that's not possible." I laughed dryly. Even though I did not believe the crow just now was really that crow, I placed the feather in my pocket. "Just in case. Just in case." I patted my pocket for good measure.

------------------

"Odette, Sarah said you had fallen sick," Father eyed me with doubt in his eyes.

I had tried pretending to be sick quite a few times when I was small. The good old times when I was still naive and young. No doubt Father was considering the odds of me faking ill so I did not have to bring Rachelle to the tea party.

What a surprise that my father was totally correct this time, but sadly he would not be able to uncover the truth.

"Father, I am not feeling quite well. I might need a healer." I sneezed. "Please tell Rachelle I am so sorry I could not bring her to the tea party." I sneezed again. "The invitation... Sarah bring me the invitation! Please don't let me hold Rachelle back, maybe Rachelle can go on her own. Rachelle must be so disappointed." I brushed the non-existent tears from my eyes.

The door pushed open at that moment with Rachelle rushing in. "Odette, how are you feeling? You look feverish! Oh dear, oh dear. How are you feeling, dear Odette?" Rachelle cried with worries, her lavender eyes began to grow misty.

Just as I had predicted. Rachelle must come rushing in to visit me. It's true that your enemy was the one who knew you best.

"Rachelle, I am so sorry. The invitation is here, it seems like you have to go on your own. It's such a pity. I thought I could accompany you to your first tea party," I sighed and dabbed my eyes with a handkerchief.

"Don't be, Odette. It saddened me that you're suffering now." Tears seemed to be about to fall from Rachelle's eyes. She squeezed my hands as she said this.

"Rachelle..." I pretended to be really touched. I did learn something from my last life, my acting greatly improved. I knew just how to act to look like we were great and loving sisters. The kind my Father would be very pleased with. When in truth, I just wanted to barf. Could you believe you had such deep feelings for someone you had only known for one day?

"Rachelle, don't let me hold you back. It's nearly time for the tea party, go and prepare!" I waved my handkerchief in the direction of the door.

Father nodded dotingly at Rachelle. "You heard what your sister said. Go and prepare."

Fighting back the urge to roll my eyes at this display of fatherly love, I waited for Rachelle to turn it down. Kind hearted Rachelle would never leave her ill sister in her sickbed alone while she went out to play.

"No, I am not going!" Rachelle cried. "How can I leave my sister here alone when I am enjoying myself? I won't be able to forgive myself! I am going to stay here and take care of Odette!"

"As expected of Hera's daughter," Father said, a look of approval appeared on his face. "Odette, learn something from your sister. Get some rest." Then he walked out of the room.

As expected from my father. Here it came, from now on the two of us would always be compared. While Rachelle shone till the end, by comparison I would always be the incompetent one.

"Odette, do you want a cup of hot tea?" Rachelle smiled lovingly.

"That'll be great." I smiled back. Now I just had to keep Rachelle at home till Lady Florence completed her final choosing.

Lord Hank you might just have to wait a tiny bit longer to meet your one true love. I smirked as I took a sip of tea.