Day Two-Sixty-One: Effugere ex Inferno

My life has fallen apart.

My idiot husband is missing. His kid is… I don't know where she is. My house is a pile of ashes. I'm out a job, and an employer, and a bunch of assistants, and… I don't even have my friend here with me… she might be able to make me feel better…

My life has fallen apart.

I'm in that damned goblin city. Surrounded by a bunch of ugly little pricks who won't let me go anywhere. I've only seen three rooms since they captured us, because we're all stuck in the same three rooms. Sealed in. We're not prisoners, the ambassador tells us, but it sure as hell feels like we're prisoners.

My life has fallen apart. I don't know what to do. So I'm writing, because, after a week of sulking, hoping, raging and swearing at the doors, it's all I have left. Dragomir's diary. Edmund suggested it, and I think it's a good idea.

I haven't written in you in a week, diary. He always wanted someone to write in you, to not miss a single day. I guess I have to catch up on a few things.

Sorry. I hope tears don't stain parchment too much.

Edmund told me that Dragomir's captain knocked me out. Konked me hard from behind, down in that fucking hole. I guess I should thank Cedric, or something, but I'd rather have died down there than be stuck up here by myself.

I'm not really by myself, I guess, but I feel like it. I don't like most of these people. Edmund's nice, and Robert's okay… though I haven't seen him in a week… but the rest are snobs. Frightened snobs, but snobs. Won't even give me the time of day when I threaten to punch 'em. Harold will, but that doesn't make him any better than the rest, because he's just as snooty. Ass.

Sorry. Getting off track. I didn't mean to slam you on the desk, diary. Don't take it personally. That's the way I am.

When I woke up, which wasn't long after I'd been hit on the head, all the pain was being washed away by wind. A lot of wind. I was sitting on a dragon, Dragomir's Barrel, pushed into a weird leathery seat sticking out of his back. Edmund told me that dragons can change shape, so I guess they can make seats from their bones and turn themselves into flying carriages or something. That's really gross, but Barrel saved me, so I shouldn't judge.

Torch after torch whizzed by us, and pretty soon the rock walls penning us in disappeared. For a few seconds we were inside a dusty warehouse -

- and then the dragon burst through the roof. Crushed the stone in front of his nose like it was paper. We hit cooler air immediately, and all the nobles with me on Barrel's back screamed. I nearly peed myself as we soared over the castle.

Note that I said 'almost'. I'm not like Dragomir. I can hold my fucking bladder.

…

Dragomir…

Sorry. Sorry. Keep going.

The castle below was a wreck. I hadn't realized it at first, but the ground was caught in a massive earthquake. Strong enough to bring the outer walls crashing down. It would've been insane to go back down into all that… so, naturally, that bastard Edmund decided to speak up and tell us that we had to go back. For Robert.

I've never seen Robert outside his library. Not that I spend much time wandering around in the keep, but I know he's not one to leave where he lives. Dragomir's told me that Robert gets pissed whenever someone suggests he leave. So, yeah, I immediately figured that he must still be down there.

First thought? Leave him behind. Fuck the old man. I want to live. Second thought? Much stronger than the first, and more like me? Nobody else is gonna die. That's exactly what I said, too: "Nobody else is going to fucking die." I joined Edmund in yelling at Barrel to take us back down.

The nobles protested. Loudly. Even that little ass Harold spoke up. I told them all to shut their ugly mouths. The look on my face must have been damned scary, because they did. In a hurry.

Barrel, without any hesitation, swooped low over the west bailey. The castle shook violently, and a painful thrum of grumbling earth hit my ears. Even with that monstrous noise, though, I could hear something else: cannon fire. From cannons I'd designed. I hadn't spotted it from overhead, but I knew the Matriarch was somewhere nearby. That made me feel good.

Barrel landed in the courtyard, amid the shitty, tattered decorations from Eve's bullshit wedding, right in front of the doors to the keep. Edmund and I jumped off the dragon's back and bolted for the open doors, fighting to keep our footing as the ground heaved and pitched beneath us. It wasn't as bad as I would have figured, but it was bad enough.

The earthquake wasn't the real problem, though. It was what we found inside the doors that freaked me out the most: a leering, fuzzy, dripping-wet spider, its dozen eyes all glowing green and trained on me. One of the moat monsters. It didn't have teeth or a proper mouth or anything like that, but it still managed to smile at me through those big-ass leg things on its face, and as it did it spoke to me with a sizzling voice I half recognized:

"Hiya, ma'am. Nice to see ya again." It tipped an invisible hat with one of its legs.

Edmund screamed behind me. I haven't known him to be especially courageous or anything, so I was kinda surprised he came along for the ride… and since a spider had just greeted us all cordial and such, I can't blame the bard for acting the part of a pansy. Spiders don't usually do that. So I knew Edmund was out for the count on this fight.

I should've been scared. Should've known it was a bad idea. But my brain wasn't working that way, it was busy with the fact that my husband was dead, and gone, and my whole body knew it. And even though that same body wanted to live, it also wanted to beat the shit out of the person that took my Dragomir away from me.

"Fuck that noise," I said, not knowing what the words even meant. I ran forward, raised my fist, and punched the spider right in its fucking eyes.

That's enough for now. I'm gonna go argue with one of the nobles for a while. That will make me feel better.

Libby