Free Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland Page B

could speak through looking, force the words from her mind to her mother’s without the use of voice. She made a little awkward bow to Marioza. Tirza was a full year older than when Marioza had seen her last, a young woman now, but still all angles, like a sawtooth.
    Something else had changed in her, something deeper.
    â€œTirza!”
    Luka strode in the door; he slapped Mervaly on the behind, and gave Casea a quick kiss, all the while heading toward Tirza, as she was turning to meet him. Reaching her, he gathered her up with a shout and tossed her into the air and caught her. “You’re back! How did you do that? ’Zeyes, don’t you wish she could tell us.” He hugged her, their red heads together. Tirza, Marioza saw, hugged him back, burrowing her face into his shoulder. Through the door behind him came Jeon and then, to Marioza’s surprise, Erdhart himself, his younger boy on his heels. Luka set Tirza down on her feet.
    â€œYou’re so thin. Look at you. Somebody clean her up. Mervaly—”
    â€œShe’s just arrived, Luka; they’ve been traveling for months.”
    â€œSo,” Erdhart said. He was standing by the door. He looked, as always, polished like a gemstone. He was smiling, as always. “The freemartin has returned.”
    They had all fallen still at the first sound of his voice, their heads swiveled to look at him behind them. Marioza said, “This is my daughter Tirza.”
    He laid his gaze briefly on the girl before him. He gave a harrumph, half laugh and half sneer. His attention turned to Marioza.
    â€œThen we shall be married tomorrow.” He passed his smile around the room, his eyes glittering. “We shall all rejoice.” He inclined his head to Marioza, and left.
    She grunted. Before her, Tirza swung around toward her again, and their eyes met. Mervaly was bending over her sister, saying, “Come on; we’ll give you a good bath.” Tirza let her sisters lead her away.
    Alone, save for the servants, Marioza sat staring into nothing. In the morning she would marry Erdhart. She could not bear that. His touch was awful to her already, when he only took her hand. She thought of Reymarro. They had married by their fathers’ arrangement, but from the first kiss she had loved him. He would have told her what to do. He would never have lost his castle to them in the first place, if he had stayed here. But they had lured him away from the ocean, and then they had killed him.
    She would not endure this. She would not let Erdhart have this. She shut her eyes, to let the boom of the surf, far below the window, pour into her mind.
    *   *   *
    The sisters all lived in the room at the top of the south tower, which had a big window looking out over the bay. Since she was a child Mervaly had loved birds, lured them in with treats and singing, rescued them from cats and boys and the weather, mended broken wings and legs. Most of them left eventually, but many came back and forth through the window, and so the room was always full of their chirruping and whirring.
    When the sisters came in the door, the seagull on the windowsill squawked and the chitter-chatter rose to a merry screech, all the wings flapping. Through this noisy welcome Tirza followed Mervaly through the room toward the window. There were fewer birds than usual: the seagull, who never left, and an old raven, the four swallows with their nests up under the eave, an owl, and in one corner of the hearth a petrel, very sick, all its feathers staring.
    A serving girl with a broom stood back to let them pass, smiled at Tirza, and bobbed a little bow. She was tall and skinny and Tirza thought once she must have been a stork. Mervaly’s big wooden tub sat by the window. Tirza stood tamely while her sisters peeled off her clothes, lifted her, and plopped her into the hot water.
    â€œAah!” She gave up her breath at the shock. The warmth soaked into her,