“He can’t be,” Cela protested, but she pulled her foot back. After a moment, Tyr released Kav’s throat and stepped away. Coughing, Kav sat up.
Tyr wished for all the world that he could put an arm around Cela and pull her against his side. She looked like an amazon, with her seafoam hair tousled and her eyes sparking green fire.
“I’ve already set her free,” Kav said between his teeth, rubbing his throat. “There’s nothing I can give her that I haven’t already. We are no longer bonded. She can marry another if any will take her.”
Tyr growled at the implied insult to his mate.
“Liar!” Cela snapped. “Tyr and I cannot touch each other. It’s the tattoos. You’ve done something to my tattoo, or if not you, then the elders.” She looked up fiercely at the watching griffins. “Shift and speak to us!”
After a pause, several of the elders shifted. “He speaks the truth,” one of them said. “Kav is not responsible. It is the island that does this, not anyone here.”
“Undo it!” Cela shouted, shaking her arm at him.
“We can’t.”
“Kav told me earlier that the island itself prevents non-griffins from living on its land,” Tyr said. Cela looked at him in shock. “I thought he was making excuses, but now I'm asking you seriously: is that true?”
“It is true,” the elder told him, looking down from her rock. “As far as we know. It’s part of the original spells that were laid down on the island many generations ago, whenour kind left the mainland for a retreat where we would be safe.”
“But there’s no reason why the magic would act to keep Tyr and I apart,” Cela said. She reached out her hand partway to touch him, then dropped it. “He’s my mate.”
There was a stir among the assembled griffins.
“We don’t have mates,” the elder said. “Not as the mainland dwellers do. It’s why we practice our own marriage customs, as when you were matched to Kav.”
“Don’t we?” Cela asked. Something seemed to bloom in her eyes, an emerald flame like the sun glinting off the sea. “Or does the island suppress it? Maybe we have to leave to find them. Maybe that’s why the old custom of leaving the island still exists. We’resupposedto go out and find our mates if they aren’t already on the island. The magic has become somehow corrupted over the centuries, or maybe it’s just worn out.”
“Blasphemy,” spat one of the other elders. The speaker waved him quiet. She was, Tyr realized, the Eldest, the one who spoke for the group.
“What do you suggest, then?” the Eldest asked. “We cannot change the island’s magic; whatever our ancestors knew about it is lost to us now. All we have are the ceremonies.”
Cela held out her arm. “Then at least take off the tattoo.”
“We can’t. We have the spells to bind you to the island, but we cannot unbind you.”
“Then take us to the island!” Tyr called. “Maybe it can undo it for us.”
“It’s not intelligent,” the Eldest told him. “It’s a place. A magic place, but just a place.”
Cela turned to Tyr. That unquenchable flame still burned in her eyes. “There’sgotto be a way.”
“What if you kiss him?” Peyton called.
Cela turned to the human woman, startled. “What?”
“That’s how it works in fairy tales, right?” Peyton waved her hands to indicate the watching griffins and the entire situation. “I admit I don’t understand all of what’s going on here, but if magic is keeping you two apart, maybe true love's kiss will break the spell.”
“That’s not—it’s not—” Cela sputtered in frustration. In spite of the desperation of their situation and the despair threatening to drag him down, Tyr found her impossibly cute. “It’s not that kind of spell!” she burst out.
“How do we know?” Tyr asked her. “We don’t know unless we try.”
“Wehavekissed,” she retorted fiercely, lowering her voice. “Lots and lots of times.”
“But not with the tattoos.”
Cela looked at him. Then, slowly, her face firmed to absolute granite. “You’re right,” she said. “We should try.” She swallowed and touched the tip of her tongue to her lips. Tyr was mesmerized by it. “It’s going to hurt,” she added.
“I know. I don’t want to hurt you.”
