Free Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland

the top. I can see what’s going on from there. You stay here with the horse and wait.”
    Her eyes widened, understanding, and she looked at the cliff, and at once she leapt off and ran to climb it. Jeon laughed. He loosened the saddle girth and slipped the bit out of the horse’s mouth so it could graze, and went after her.
    *   *   *
    â€œBe careful,” her brother said. “Don’t let them see you.”
    He and Tirza lay flat on the grassy brow of the cliff and crawled up to the edge. She put her head down on the ground a moment, the sun warm on her back, and spread her arms out. The distant boom of the surf sounded in her ears. She felt like never moving. After the long aloneness she had Jeon back again and soon would be home, deep in the middle of her family. Beside her, Jeon muttered something.
    â€œThere are a lot of them here.”
    She crept to the edge of the cliff and peered down through the stalky grass. She had already seen this, from down there on the beach. Below them the cliff had fallen away in a long crumple, forming a bowl of higher ground behind the beach. On the raw, dark earth at the bottom, the striped men moved like beetles, digging and hauling rocks, and laying rocks together. Already they had covered the toe of the slide with a neat crisscross of stone lines. She nudged Jeon, and turned her palm up, asking.
    He cupped his hand around his mouth, shielding his voice, even here. “I think they’re going to build some kind of wall. Maybe a fortress. You see how they can watch anybody moving down the road from here. And the cove here is sheltered enough for a couple of ships, if the wind doesn’t blow too foul.”
    She looked down again. She remembered the sea captain’s chart: they were casting their net over more of the world. The men down there were too far away to make out faces; they swarmed around in constant movement, their black and white bodies sharp against the dark earth. She thought there were at least thirty people here, maybe twice thirty. Beyond the toe of the slide, down the beach, there was a mess of sticks and tents. She thought she saw smoke rising. A camp. That was where they lived, all these men. From that direction a man on a horse was jogging up toward the workers.
    Jeon said, “That’s Oto.” His voice was suddenly hard, like a blade. “Erdhart’s son.”
    Jeon gnashed these names between his teeth. She glanced at him, startled at the raw anger in him. She could not remember that in him before. Now he was pushing himself back from the cliff.
    â€œLuka will want to know all of this. Come on. We have to go back east up the coast and circle around inland to the high road—they picked this place well. It blocks the whole coast trail.” His voice was still tight with purpose. She went on down the hillside, to where they had left the horse, and they rode off down the beach.
    *   *   *
    Oto stared away toward the far end of the shore, where the high cliff came down almost into the ocean. “There was just the one?”
    The soldier at his stirrup said, “Well, except for the girl. Should I have brought him in? You said—”
    â€œNo, no, you did well, keeping him away.” Oto put his hands on his saddlebow, thinking of Jeon. “A mere boy, this Prince, not tall, thin, no beard yet.”
    â€œYes. He had a girl with him.”
    â€œSo you said.”
    â€œShe had red hair, too.”
    â€œWell, well.”
    He gathered his reins. Swiftly he ran this through his mind. Clearly Jeon had found the missing Princess. Oto’s father would marry at once. Oto would be stuck down here, piling up rocks, while Erdhart took Castle Ocean into his hands, gave out power and privileges. Oto’s fingers curled around the reins. He had to be there when all this happened. He could not let Broga seize all the benefits. Oto looked around the new fort, which only