Tyr shifted and straightened up, putting on a show of strength and trying not to reveal his weariness. “You must be Kav.”
“And you are the exile. Don’t think I haven’t heard of you. It was part of the island business the conclave dealt with a year or so ago.”
“Aren’t you going to ask how Cela and the children are?”
This time he actually saw Kav flinch before the bigger man scowled. “You have no right to?—”
“Youhave no right to do what you did to her,” Tyr snapped.
“It was the kindest of the alternatives available to me.”
Tyr actually laughed at that. “Kindest? It’s a form of torture. You sent her away, you haven’t even asked about your own kids—they’re fine, by the way?—”
“I think of them often,” Kav said.
“You could have had them,” Tyr snapped, “and kept her, if not for your stupid, cruel, indefensible griffin rules. I am here to ask for her freedom, to demand it if asking doesn’t work, and to fight you if you won’t give it to me.”
Kav gestured at the griffins flanking him. They stepped back, and he took a few steps toward Tyr, who braced himself for whatever was coming.
“There was no choice,” Kav said quietly. “She couldn’t have stayed on the island—not with the children.”
“Your stupid rules,” Tyr growled.
“Notmyrules. The island’s rules, set down long ago in the distant past of our kind. The rules act to keep us all safe.” He sounded as if he was reciting something he had been told.
Tyr refused to accept this. “What does that mean? The islanditselfrejects non-griffins? The island’s magic?”
“In time, they would have sickened and died. Sending them away was the only choice.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Believe or not, it’s the truth,” Kav said. “And besides, she wasn’t happy here—you know that, don’t you? She wasn’thappy with me. She put up a show of it, but she’s blossomed in the outside world—hasn’t she?”
“So you really are going to pretend you did this for her own good? You threw her out and left her to fend for herself. Even young griffins on walkabout get more support than that. I should know—I was one of them.”
“Our clan isn’t allowed to do walkabout. We never leave the island.” Kav’s face was bleak. “The children were a tragedy?—”
“A tragedy! They’re your kids!”
“—but also an opportunity, for her and for us.” Kav shook his head. “What we did seemed harsh, I’m sure. Itwasharsh. You can’t understand that it was hard for me too.”
“I didn’t come here to hear your justifications,” Tyr growled. And itwasa growl, rumbling from inside his chest. He had never felt so perfectly aligned with his griffin. “The person you should be telling this to is Cela, not me, but she doesn’t want to talk to you. Set her free and let her live a life without you, without all of you, at last.”
“You understand nothing,” Kav said.
“So explain it to me, then.”
Kav set his jaw.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Tyr straightened his back, the wind blowing through his hair. “Kav of Silvershell Covert, I challenge you. Fight me. If I win, you set her free, in all ways.”
“You won’t.”
“We’ll find out, won’t we?”
Kav curled his lip in a snarl and ripped off his leather shirt, leaving him naked to the waist. Tyr raised his eyebrows and stripped out of his shirt as well.
“Someone is coming!” called one of the griffin guards.
