Isran sighed in contentment as she lowered herself into the tub. It had been a week since she woke up and she was still dealing with headaches and fainting spells. Memories she hadn’t remembered yet came at unexpected times, sometimes she just couldn’t hold herself up. She felt like a burden.

  Phaedra seemed the most shaken from her coma. Not to diminish the others' reactions but Phaedra seemed especially scared. She wasn’t the most talkative person, and she had a habit of showing everything she felt on her face.

  What Isran had seen for the past week was fear and sadness, she hated it.

  Alden the bbbermouth that he was didn’t spare any details. Morgana would not like to know that he had told her what happened when she wasn’t fully recovered but Isran appreciated the information.

  The charges Phaedra’s father had levelled against her had been dropped, mostly because the governor caught wind of them and after interrogating her girlfriends and checking them for compulsion spells he deemed the case unnecessary. The merchant also had a hefty fine, most of which went into paying for healing for Isran.

  Alden added that considering she was comatose on account of a blessing, the prayers to cure her were not cheap in the slightest.

  The tournament had ended that morning—cancelled--and during the first month her fans had wanted to see if she was alive. They had found her home and would knock asking. Alden said there was even a time they held a prayer vigil, Elysi called the guards on them.

  That was the good part.

  As much as she was cleared of her accused crimes it had been found out that Calliope was being smuggled when they found her and had failed to report it. Elysi expined that the smugglers were all dead but a pending case was waiting for her.

  Then there was the fact that the tournament had ended early and so the winners were not pronounced. They were each given twenty acorns worth of coin which was an absolutely insane amount of money for a regur person in Kestin. That was good. However, Isran’s reward was being withheld till she answered her pending case.

  Then there was the issue of the people who had been healing her gossiping about what they saw, and so rumours that she was a summoned were going around.

  Isran had learnt a lot from her memories, but that was a Neos exclusive term—in the sense that she had heard it used.

  Alden expined that powerful mages could summon souls of the dead into dead bodies—usually not the same person—and either control them or have them do whatever they wanted.

  In one of the texts of exaltation to Vycor it was considered an insult to do so. Therefore it was made illegal in Evelncarth and its proxies. Apparently in some other continents that was not the case.

  Isran stared hard at Alden when the orc expined summoning to her, if he noticed he said nothing.

  The rumours of summoning affected her in a less direct way. She had become associated with some political faction by her proximity to Morgana, one of the spearheads of the idea to check if she was indeed summoned was Gautier, which was not helping things in the slightest.

  It was a big deal, and the noble house Gautier hailed from had a lot of influence.

  Alden told her Morgana had to come to the house every week to make sure some assassination attempts hadn’t happened. Isran was sceptical of that being the reason but didn’t voice her opinion to Alden.

  There were more issues that were not Isran specific.

  There was a massive dungeon break and several monsters had attacked religious districts and small settlements around the border. Adventurers and soldiers were still dealing with the problem, several monsters were hiding in abandoned towns and people in Kestin were a bit restless about that.

  News from Evelncarth said the Underwater dungeon spawn had a simir break and the navy was dealing with that, though since monsters in that dungeon region were of much higher calibre it was looking very bad. One of the docking holds near the spawn area had been completely overrun.

  Then there was news that some insurrectionists had been arrested in the capital and would be publicly hung.

  Then back to Isran’s immediate problems, was Red. The cape was still locked up because it being locked up was actually a court order. It had tried to kill four people, severely injuring one when they had tried to carry Isran into the house.

  The order mandated that the cape couldn’t be set free till Isran could come to the Kestin main courthouse and revoke it, also signing a responsibility document.

  Since the governor had had Red extended ws applied. There were no ws for owning a cape scrap, but a full cape was a different matter. They were extremely dangerous and votile at any size, but a full cape was capable of much more. Isran was a bit excited to see what upgrades Red had.

  Isran closed her eyes as she sunk deeper into the tub, her knees peeking out of the water. Before she knew it she had drifted off to sleep.

  “Please, please, please, gods please!”

  All Isran could see was red, a vague silhouette was crouched below her. Her form was strange, only half human. It was cold, but she barely focused on that, the only thing she could parse, the only thing she could think about was to—

  KILL

  Isran took in a rge gulp of air when she woke up from her short dream.

  She resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut. The water in the tub had turned cold and she was pruning, so with her sleep ruined by the memory from her second life, she stood up and got out of the bathroom.

  Phaedra lifted up her head and immediately blushed when she locked eyes with a naked dripping Isran. Magical worlds had a strange way of keeping people looking retively the same. Though Isran still felt quite weak, her form was almost exactly the same. She had lost a bit of weight most notably in her face, but it was quickly returning.

  Her blue-haired girlfriend turned around.

  “You can look y’know. We are dating.”

  Phaedra said nothing and kept her back turned.

  With a sigh and humoured smile, Isran got dressed.

  “I’m decent.”

  Phaedra peaked to be sure first before turning completely.

  She watched as the woman fidgeted with her hands.

  Isran took a step forward. “Want to read with me?” It would’ve been more fun watching tv with Phaedra, but that wasn’t an option.

  Isran’s chest hurt when she thought about the woman she had left behind when she died in her first life. Now she had three.

  “Live for me! Promise me you will live for me!”

  She blinked the memory away. Phaedra nodded.

  Two hours into reading Isran put her book down and hugged Phaedra to her, the woman stiffened briefly and rexed into her body, head leaning on her chest.

  “What’s wrong?” Isran whispered.

  Phaedra didn’t answer, only rexed into Isran further.

  Isran didn’t press the woman for more.

  Eventually, Elysi joined them then Calliope and Isran and her lovers y in bed in a tense silence. When they had all fallen asleep Isran—as quietly as she could manage—snuck out of the room.

  She hadn’t been outside the house since she had woken up and although that was not the reason she was leaving the warm embrace of the women she loved she took the opportunity to do so.

  Their neighbourhood was as peaceful as ever, no one was outside and that was when Isran realised her clock spell had worn off. It was a strange kind of peace to not know what time it was, just enjoying the cool air and moonlight.

  “Why are you up?” Elysi whispered as she wrapped her arms around Isran from behind.

  “I could ask you the same thing.” Isran smiled, rubbing her girlfriend’s hands.

  There was a long silence as they stood there before Elysi spoke again.

  “You’ve been a bit… different.”

  Isran’s heart sank, but she put on a brave face. “How so?”

  Elysi was quiet for a bit. “More sure of yourself. That might be because you are surrounded by us but it’s the way you walk, with your head held higher than I have ever seen before.”

  “Is that a good thing?” Isran whispered back, her voice quivering, she could feel the back of her shirt getting wet—Elysi was crying.

  “Anything with you is a good thing.”

  Isran wondered how they felt for the two months she was essentially gone. How they dealt with it, how they reacted to the news.

  “I’m sorry I put you through this.”

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “I did though.” Isran turned around to face the sheep woman, looking down at her.

  “I told you about… the gods giving me another chance.”

  Elysi nodded.

  “I was so confused and so I prayed… and they answered.”

  Elysi blinked a few times and nodded a bit. “Your memories are back?”

  Isran nodded back. “They gave me a choice. To go back still affected by their influence… or get my memories back… I wish it hadn’t put you guys through so much though”

  Elysi shook her head and reached up to caress Isran’s cheek—Isran bending down to make it happen.

  “Don’t apologise. You made the right decision. I would never fault you for that.”

  “You don’t think I’m weird? I’m a bit different and I… don’t want you to stay with me just because you were in love with who I was.”

  Elysi shook her head firmly. “I am in love with you. Who you were, who you are, who you will be I don’t care about any of that.”

  Isran felt her eyes sting at the heartfelt decration.

  “I love you too.”

  Their heads turned to the door to see Calliope and Phaedra there, both women joined them, Phaedra spoke for the first time since Isran had woken up.

  “We love you, I love you, no matter who you were or what you did.”

  Isran almost visibly winced at the decration. If only they knew what she was. What her second life had been. Would they truly still love her? She highly doubted that.

  “Let's go inside,” Calliope said. Isran realised she hadn’t seen Leopold.

  “Where is Leopold?”

  Calliope winced at the question. “He had lived long.”

  Isran hated she had not been there when the rat passed. She knew they didn’t live very long, it was still a hard pill to swallow. Once they were in the bedroom again and lying in bed Isran gnced at the cupboard where Red was locked. The cape had rattled it a few times but not made an attempt to break out… well it actually couldn’t, a spell kept the cape locked up.

  “Goodnight Red.” The cupboard rattling was her answer back. To her pleasant surprise, her girlfriends said goodnight to the cape as well.

  Isran stayed awake as they all slept again, the dread of the memories of her second life adding to that, eventually her weakened body forced her into sleep.

  “Curse you vile monster!”

  KILL

  “Aaarghhh—”

  KILL

  “More kill.”

  Isran turned to see a half-serpent half-woman, she was the only thing she saw that was not drowned in red. She was beautiful, her upper body human and lower body serpent. They were both sat on a high building, but from the way the surroundings seemed—even in their red haze—Isran could tell she was huge, they were both huge.

  She felt her mouth move.

  “Rest.”

  The serpentine woman smiled, her lip quirking and her row of sharp teeth revealed.

  “Rest.”

  Isran felt her body y down, her features more clear to her when she wasn’t lost in a haze of red. Like the woman that id on top of her, she was half serpentine. Her naked upper body didn’t register much, her heart did not beat and she could feel a chill, but it did not make her cold.

  She felt herself purr as her body rex. Then there was a sound, the sound of people speaking. And then the red haze returned.