All anyone could talk about at dinner was what happened at the Sectioning, and Azi was sick of hearing it. He was sure the ambassadors were giving him sideways glances, though they always seemed to be busy eating when he turned to look. And he missed Jala. He’d already gotten used to having her by his side at all of the feasts and dances and speeches, even if they hadn’t spoken as much lately.

This is her fault. If she wasn’t so . . . so. . . . The words bold and beautiful kept coming up, which wasn’t at all what he meant. She hadn’t even waited a day before trying to seize power. I thought you were different. His words kept repeating in his head, taking on a mocking tone. Who did he think she was going to be?

He needed to get out of there. “If you’ll excuse me, my lords, the food doesn’t agree with me tonight.” As he made his way past the ambassadors, his uncle smirked at him as if he knew exactly where Azi meant to go. That only made Azi angrier.

Once he was out of the dining hall, Azi removed the King’s Earring and stuck it in his pocket. It weighed on him constantly, itching and irritating his ear the way no other earring ever had. But it was more than that. It was the way people looked at him now, as if they only saw what he was and not who he was. People who hadn’t given him a second glance, or who’d seen only a second son, a sailor or a shipmate or a friend now saw the king of the Five-and-One Islands. Even without the earring dragging on his earlobe he still felt it there, like a mask he couldn’t take off.

He’d thought Jala could see through it, but he’d been deluding himself. When she put on the Queen’s Earring, she put on a different mask than he did. It was her father’s mask. Maybe his uncle had been right.

He took the servants’ entrance out of the manor. The beach was again a long, sprawling party. The drums pounded in his chest, and the bonfires blazed tall and bright, throwing burning ash up into the sky.

There was one person he thought might still remember the old Azi and not this king he’d only just met and barely knew. But she wouldn’t be out there on the beach; he was sure of it. She’d be at her mother’s cottage, waiting for him.

He stuck to the shadows, though the light from the fire made it impossible to see what was underfoot. He tripped on fallen branches, stones, and a few people who’d decided to sleep off their drink somewhere dark and quiet. The village was only a short walk from the manor, one of many that dotted the coast of the First Isle. Small huts sat almost on the water, fishing boats nearby, while larger cottages sat farther back on a low hill.

More fires lit the way for him, but he didn’t need them. He would have been able to walk this path with his eyes closed. His heart was racing by the time he reached the cottage’s door and raised a hand to knock. It swung open before him, and she stood in the doorway, her smile bright from the distant firelight.

“Azi,” she said, throwing her arms around him. “I waited for you.”

“Kona,” he said, the name he’d whispered to himself so often in the weeks before he’d met Jala.

“Why haven’t I seen you at all since you got back?” Kona looked at him reproachfully. “I stayed up all night yesterday waiting for you, but you never came.”

“I’m sorry,” Azi said. “There’s just so much to do. I couldn’t miss the first feast, and there was the Sectioning.”

Kona pulled away from him. “And you have a wife now. Some say that the Bardo girl has hooked you, and you’ll go whichever way she pulls, but I didn’t believe them. I thought it must be some plan of your uncle’s. I mean, you’re here, aren’t you?” Kona smiled.

Azi had never lied to her about anything that mattered before. It was easy not to lie when your life was simple, though. He wanted to lie now. “It wasn’t my uncle’s idea. He wanted me to marry a Rafa girl. He threatened to leave my side entirely. I told him he couldn’t. I ordered him to stay.”

You can’t stop being my uncle just because you don’t want to be, he’d said. Not unless I say so. The words had sounded so cold, far colder than he felt. Uncle Inas was his only family except for his mother, and she was leaving him for her Gana family in just a few weeks.

Kona spoke softly. “So it’s true. You picked this girl against his will. You wanted to marry her.”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t that simple.” It had seemed simple enough on the beach with Jala, though, hadn’t it? At least, it had until that night with Jala on the barge, when he couldn’t stop seeing Kona’s face.

“You said you didn’t care who your uncle picked for you.”

I won’t love her, he’d said. She won’t mean anything to me. So maybe he’d lied after all. Who knew that promises could turn into lies so easily? The truth seemed to change depending who he talked to, slippery as an eel.

“I can’t let my uncle be king for me,” Azi said. “I have to make my own decisions.”

“What’s wrong with letting your uncle help you? Even your brother needed his help, and Jin was born to be a king. You were meant to be a sailor, and that’s all I ever needed from you.”

“You’re right,” Azi whispered. He didn’t push her away. “I love you.” He was in his brother’s place, where he didn’t belong. Not like Jala. Jala was raised to be a queen. Why are you still thinking about her when you have Kona right in front of you?

“I love you,” he repeated, trying to make it sound real again. It didn’t.

He closed his eyes and tried to shut out all the thoughts, the promises, the feelings he couldn’t put into words. All the things that were trying to steal this moment from him.

She pulled away, as though she could sense the direction of his thoughts. “Do you love her?” she whispered.

“Yes,” Azi whispered back. “I hardly know her, but . . . I think I do. Even when she sounds like her father.”

“I see.” Kona was quiet for a long time. “Will you still come to see me? We can just talk.”

“I will,” Azi promised. But neither one of them was sure whether to believe it.

Azi didn’t know how long they stood together. Only when the drummers on the beach faltered and stopped did Azi turn to go. Someone was shouting, he realized, and it was more than a drunken argument. A breeze blew in from the manor, carrying with it a strange, sulfurous smell that hung heavy in the air.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “What’s that smell? I could almost believe the fire mountain was paying us a visit.” He stepped away from her. “I should find out what’s going on.”

“It’s probably nothing,” Kona said. She touched his arm. “You don’t have to go yet.”

Azi gently took her hand and squeezed it. “I have to. I’m the king.”