Dragon Heart by Cecelia Holland Page A

her hands, and gave herself up to her grief. Mother, Mother, she thought. Mother, why did you leave us like this?
    Before her she saw the whole of her family coming apart, like a fabric unraveling, all the threads apart, and all the patterns gone.
    Across the room, behind the bed, Tirza was creeping along the wall. Even she was crying. At the same time, with both hands, she was groping along the stones of the wall. Casea knew what she was looking for, and presently saw her find it, saw her fingers push gently at what seemed like solid stone, and open the seam, and slip into it. Slowly the wall closed behind her.
    Casea thought, Even that, even that, will make things worse. She folded her arms around herself a moment, trying to sort this all out, and finally went for her needlework, to keep her hands busy.
    *   *   *
    There was no way straight down the cliff from the castle terrace; Broga had to go miles around, along the flat grassy meadow at the top of the cliff to the angling narrow trail down to the beach, and then up the beach to the foot of the beetling rock where the castle stood. At full tide the waves beat against the sheer cliff face as high as the edge of the terrace, but now the tide was going out, draining from the jagged seams of rock along the beach.
    A white cloud of birds screamed and flew upward at his approach. Beneath them they left Erdhart, lying there on his back below the terrace. Broga gave a cry, and splashed out through the last of the tide. His father had fallen onto the rocks, his body sprawled, the subsiding water around him stained with blood. Over his chest and face the crabs were already crawling.
    Broga charged in through the ankle-deep water, and stamped and kicked at the crabs until all had scuttled off or lay crushed in the rocks. He sank down beside the ruin of his father. In the cups of their sockets Erdhart’s eyes were bloody slicks. The gulls and crabs had already opened wounds on his face. His hair flooded on an eddy. The side of his skull dented inward. Broga put out his hand, to form the head back into shape, and the matter squished under his fingers. He doubled over, wracked with grief.
    The three soldiers he had brought stood at the edge of the water. He forced himself calm. Someone would pay for this. He would make someone suffer for this. He straightened to his feet, and caught the sergeant’s eye.
    â€œGo find me a stretcher, a litter, some way we can carry him back to the castle.”
    â€œYes, my lord.” With a salute the sergeant led his men back toward the village.
    Broga turned his eyes again to his father’s body; his heart beat unsteadily, a cauldron in his breast. He looked around for the other one, the woman who had done this, who was here, too, somewhere.
    He would trample her into something not even crabs would eat.
    The rocks came up through the sand like the ragged edges of baskets, holding pots of water. He searched around where Erdhart lay, but she was not there. Broga went wider, all along the foot of the cliff, out to the retreating edge of the sea. She was not there.
    He growled, aching with frustration. She was here somewhere. He searched again, all along the rocks and sand, everywhere. He found nothing. The soldiers came back, with a litter they had made of poles and cloth, and two mules.
    He stood watching as they lifted his father carefully up. The sergeant did most of the work, directing the others, folding the broken body together, arms across the chest, leg over leg. He stretched a cloak on the ground and they lifted Erdhart onto it, wrapping the cloak tight around him, so that nothing spilled. They carried the litter off toward the mules.
    The rocks where Erdhart had lain were bloody, and clumped with awful stuff. Through the water something gleamed. Broga stooped, and took up a piece of gold. A ring. He held it up into the sun. By the twist of the gold he knew it: not his father’s but Marioza’s ring.