Free Jala's Mask by Mike Grinti Page B

kiss? Simple and heartfelt, something she could have at any time but worth the price of a precious jewel. It would be a nice gesture, at least. A better start than they’d had so far. Just a kiss, nothing more, and it would be enough for now. Maybe it would help them start over.
    But even as she opened her mouth to say it another thought came to her, souring her fantasies like a bad smell. Jala’s excitement vanished. Her parents would never forgive her if she wasted such a perfect opportunity. She knew what she had to ask for. What she was supposed to want. “I want you to give my family the city of Two Bones at the Sectioning tomorrow.”
    Azi laughed. “What? I can’t just take the Rafa’s city from them.”
    â€œYou can, if you make it a present. Tomorrow, at the Sectioning.”
    Azi’s smile was gone now. “You’ve only been here a day. Don’t you want to . . . can’t you wait for your clothes to be unpacked and your bed to be slept in before you start making enemies?”
    Jala shrugged. “My father says we’re all enemies, we just haven’t fought in two hundred years.”
    â€œWell, my uncle says the Bardo are like sharks only without the good manners, but I don’t always listen to him.”
    â€œYou asked what I wanted,” Jala said. “And I told you. You can’t keep throwing the fact that you disobeyed your uncle to marry me back in my face.”
    â€œYes, and I thought I married you, not your father.” Azi stopped speaking and took a deep breath. “I don’t know how we managed to turn this into an argument. That can’t be what you want, not really. It’s what your family wants. I want to give something to you, not for Jala of the Bardo or Jala the queen of the Five-and-One.”
    Jala was silent for a moment. “I’m all of those things. I never pretended not to be. This matters to me. My family matters to me.”
    â€œI thought you were different,” Azi said. “Not just a tool for your family.”
    Jala flinched but didn’t let her gaze waver. I am different! she wanted to say, though a part of her wondered about even that. She made herself respond. “You mean you thought I’d just sleep through all the parts where we actually rule. If that’s it, I don’t know who you were walking with on that beach when we met. But it wasn’t me.”
    â€œThat’s not what I meant—”
    Jala shook her head. “You asked what I wanted, not what you wanted to give me. If you want to take back your gift, just say so.”
    â€œNo, you’re right. I offered you anything you wanted, but I expected . . . it doesn’t matter. Are you sure this is what you want?”
    No , Jala thought. “Yes,” she said.
    â€œAs you wish, my queen. If you’ll excuse me, I’m tired from the journey, and I haven’t seen my mother in weeks.”
    Then he was gone.
    Jala shut the door behind him and sat down on the bed. Queens don’t cry , her mother had told her. “Well?” she said to the bird the Rafa had given her. “Sing me something, one of those beautiful foreign songs you’re supposed to know. Or are you just a joke they decided to play on me?” The bird sang, in a language she didn’t understand. It was beautiful, just as they said. But it sounded like a love song. Everything the bird sang sounded like a love song.
    She finally had to throw a shoe at the bird to make it stop.

That evening, dinner went as Azi had predicted. The wine flowed freely, though Jala noticed that Azi, like her, drank little. They danced together, but Azi held her stiffly and his speech was distant and formal. Jala excused herself from any further dancing and sulked at the table. He can’t stay mad forever. You did what you had to, and he knows it. He would have done the same thing for his family, and everyone would expect as much because