Free Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland Page A

that morning he had been so pleased with. Now the long, straight walls, the beginning of the tower, all swarming with workers, looked like nothing more than a prison.
    â€œGo,” he said to the soldier. “Make sure they have gone back.” He reached into his saddle pouch for the map, so he could decide the quickest way back to Castle Ocean.
    *   *   *
    Jeon and Tirza rode two days eastward along the coast to where a track up the cliff led inland. A few miles from the sea, they came on the highland track, winding through the brushy meadows and low hills below the first wind-bent line of the forest, down into the west toward Cape of the Winds. After more days, the road led them down through a saddle in the hills, and ahead they could see the thin black towers of Castle Ocean against the horizon.
    At first all they saw was the tops of towers. As they rode on through the day, the black bulk of the castle appeared, crouched above the sea. Birds circled it. The air was hazy with the spume of the surf beneath it. The new tower, eastmost of the five, looked false, with its squat shape, its grey stone quarried from the hills. The gate was of the same stuff; some early King had built them, to keep people out of the castle while seeming to let them in.
    The road led up to the cliff’s edge, short of the gate, and turned to run down to the south. A bridge arched across the gap between the cliff and the castle gate. Riding along behind Jeon, her hand on his belt, Tirza leaned out to look, and saw people moving on it, those same black and white bodies that had swarmed over the half-begun fort.
    They weren’t coming away, or going in, but standing there on the bridge, and they all had the long sticks in their hands, the blades jutting up higher than their heads. She said, “What is this?” and heard the incomprehensible mutter that came out.
    Jeon’s head turned toward her. “Erdhart’s men. They patrol the bridge day and night.” He pointed off across the cliff-top meadow. “They have a camp over there.”
    She laughed. Then that was useless. But she wished her brother had taken another way, down by the beach, so they could have avoided this. Pace by pace, the horse carried them on up the arch of the bridge, past narrow-eyed strangers with pale hair and padded striped chests, toward the big gatehouse, toward her mother, toward whatever happened next.
    *   *   *
    Marioza could hear them laughing, out in the hall, long before they burst in the door, Mervaly and Casea like bells pealing and Tirza higher, wilder, and then they crashed into the room. Mervaly’s lavender gown billowed around her when she stopped, and she reached to draw Casea back out of the way. Between them, the youngest of them all stood, skinny and shabby and dirty faced, staring at her mother.
    Marioza felt a violent surge of love. She stretched her arms out, and Tirza came up to her and she gathered her to the warmth of her bosom. The girl was stiff in her mother’s arms, wary, as always. Scrawny as a sick chicken. Marioza touched Tirza’s hair. “Ah, my little. I am glad you are home. We’ll fatten you up and make you glad again.” She let the girl go, and Tirza backed up a foot and stood, her wide blue eyes fixed on her mother.
    Mervaly came up beside her, a hand on her shoulder. “Mother, she’s here now. You heard what Jeon said. You must never send her back to Santomalo.” Tirza looked up at Mervaly, and put her hand on Mervaly’s hand.
    Marioza sat back. The glow of motherliness was ebbing away. And now she would have to marry Erdhart. There was nothing to be done but go through with it all. Yet she was still glad to see Tirza, and smiled at her, and nodded. “I think we must abide each other. No more tricks, hah.”
    Tirza suddenly smiled back. This made her prettier, but not much. The blue eyes blazed with that fierce stare, as if she