Page 133 of A Realm of Shattered Lies

At least, they don’t seem to remember living multiple lives.

Not that my knowledge is perfect. It’s a lot to keep up with. Honestly, one life is enough to keep up with. A friend told me once that he sometimes thinks about all the days he’s lived that don’t make it into his memory banks. How it was crazy that though that conversation was happening, we might not remember it at all. Entire days add up to weeks and years, all lost to our imperfect memories.

I don’t remember which life I had that conversation in, but I suppose that’s the point I’m trying to make.

It’s a lot to keep up with, living dozens of lives, only getting glimpses of them in my memories, and even then, never quite able to sort which belongs where.

So I don’t find it quite fair when others call me flighty, vapid, scatterbrained. Fleeting.

But that’s also beside the point.

Where was I? Am I?

Oh yeah.

I’m dying.

There’s a throbbing pain in my side where Farin’s knife protrudes, and the feel of blood slipping from my veins, draining my life and consciousness with it.

I wonder what will happen to me when I die.

I wonder if I’ll wake again, in another body, as I always do.

For some reason, I doubt it.

This feels final.

At least Nox gets to have his happy ending.

Mine might not be happy, but it is an ending, so there’s that, at least.

“No,” Farin shouts as Nox trips backward through the eyelet. Farin launches himself at it, dodging the scrambling tarantula. For a moment, I think he might make it, but then it slips from his fingertips, forming into nothing more than a wall slated with spiderwebs.

I allow myself a gargled laugh.

It’s probably my last, considering the tarantula has regained its footing and is currently pivoting toward me, its pincers glistening in the effervescent light of its web.

Earlier, I thought being eaten by a giant scorpion was the worst way a person could go.

Now that I’m staring into the eight black orbs that make this tarantula’s eyes, I’ve decided otherwise.

I scramble backward on my elbows, leaving a path of smeared blood across the cave floor.

I quickly discover this plan of action is not going to work.

The spider closes the gap between us with the ease of a single step, its long spindly legs covering the distance.

I’m not entirely sure, because my blood loss is causing my senses to fade, but I’m fairly certain I gag.

It’s probably more like a retch if I’m to be perfectly honest.

Dread encompasses me, and though I try to push myself up, my hands slip on the blood-slick floor.

I hate Farin. The male doesn’t even have the decency to kill me properly, and now I’m going to be eaten before I can bleed out from my knife wound in peace.

The spider clicks its pincers together greedily, then attacks.

I brace myself for a slow and agonizing death, hoping whatever goo is dripping from those pincers is an analgesic as well as a paralytic.

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