A CRYSTALLINE FREQUENCY chapter 1
caged beyond my heart
(chapter 0 is now the first chapter of this story, so check that out before reading this one!)
I wake with a jolt of panic, Mak’s name on my tongue, the image of a knife in his torso burned onto my retinas.
Darkness envelops the space around me. The natural luminescence of my rosy skin only touches a small patch of the gravel floor, but the scrape of metal on metal confirms where I am: trapped behind bars within my enemy’s dungeon.
The sound of blade against bars slices through my brain, worsening my headache. An eerily jaunty tune whistles through the chilly air, and even before his holosleeve illuminates, I know whose pale gray lips it comes from.
"Oh radiant little crystal,” he croons, as taunting as before, “I’ve come to crush you to dust.”
My fingers dig into the pebbles as I push upright, fury quaking through my weakened body.
It was one thing for him to betray me, to forsake our friendship—but to stab Maknus? I can’t remain rational in the wake of that. I want to pounce across my cell and gouge out his eyes.
But he’s quicker than me, stronger than me. And I can’t even ask about Mak, because then, if the Rakis have captured my friend, they’ll use him against me, torture him until I offer information. And if Mak is dead…
No. I won’t even consider it. We have the medical technology to heal stab wounds, and the Exarch wouldn’t have hurt him worse after I passed out. He would want me to watch.
At least, I think he would. He’s always been unpredictable, though, and despite the similarities between our two species, he’s truly an alien to me now.
Slowly, I lift my blurry eyes to the creature crouched beyond my cell. One of his hands, blacker than the space between stars, grips the bars while the other drags my dagger across the metal, adding to his haunting melody.
Last time I saw him in the flesh, his skin was purely white, but he’s changed in our seven years apart, smeared himself in markings from his bald head down his bare torso.
Rumor is he stains himself with the blood of his victims, a symbol for each life he’s taken.
Rumor is the black drenching his fingertips to his elbows is from ripping out the hearts of his enemies, the Lupherians. My people.
“No need, Morbak,” I sneer, refusing to use his given name. He’s nothing beyond his family now, an obedient drone in their ruthless brigade. “You accomplished that a long time ago.”
With his crazed gray eyes roving over me, a grin splits his face, black teeth gleaming on display. “Seems I didn’t do a fine enough job if you’re back for more.”
Two thousand years of contact between our two planets means we speak the same tongue, but his people have a harsher accent, his particularly rough, like the sharpening of a blade. He didn’t sound that way as a child. His uncle, his sister—they hammered him into this disfigured weapon.
Or perhaps they only cleared away the exoskeleton to unearth the monster beneath.
“I didn’t ask you to infiltrate my personal ship and kidnap me,” I snap, and then bite my tongue before I can add anything about Maknus.
“No? You were flying awfully close to Rakillon’s magnetosphere.”
“Because you…you pulled us into it…or something.”
He smiles like I’m an entertaining idiot. “Ohhh no, that was all you. You can’t resist tugging on the thread between us.”
“That’s—” I start, but I don’t know how to argue.
I’ve felt that thread—even now, it’s an invisible buzzing wire, connecting me to his steady heartbeat. But I don’t have the power to touch it—it’s not real.
He knows my obsession with the metaphysical, with Ether, with things not seen. He’s manipulating me, trying to coax me into a confession.
“If we were close to your magnetosphere, it was by accident,” I say. “I was training my crew. You know our planets are in conjunction right now. We must have gone off course.”
I hold his scrutinizing gaze, hoping he won’t detect my lie.
He can’t find out about the assassins. If they haven’t succeeded yet, then they’re lying in wait for the perfect opportunity.
Not that it matters. The Rakis have the perfect weapon to end the war now: me.
Even if the Grand Monarch dies, the Morbaks will ransom me in exchange for an unconditional surrender from my father, dooming Lupheria to a fate of subjugation. Rakillon will control the ziphium crystal supplies, deeming whether my people can have access to technology or if we must revert back to primitive times.
Our only hope is if my plan to conquer Ziphoter somehow works—if Azaria and Harvel have safely arrived there to carry out my mission without me.
“I don’t doubt you’d be a scatterbrained leader.” His tone is light, but his grip tightens on the cell bar. “It must be a coincidence, then, that we apprehended a gang of your ilk on their way to commit some naughty, naughty deeds.”
The sliver of hope I cling to is sucked into a black hole.
They caught Azaria and Harvel.
Not only is my planet destined for eternal enslavement, but all my closest friends are either dead or at the mercy of my enemies.
And to think, on my ship, I really believed I was a genius, devising this foolproof plan.
How cruel of the Ether to give me that savory taste of success only to rip out my tongue right after.
With all my might, I try to exude calm, try not to tremble. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? You didn’t send assassins to murder my uncle?”
A breath of relief fills my lungs—a selfish one, since all I think about are my friends, not the loyal Lupherian assassins I condemned to death.
I would’ve given up without Azaria and Harvel, though, and they’re our only chance of winning the war now that I’m at the Rakis’ disposal.
My senses narrow on the dagger as the Exarch angles it toward me, all self-pity and mourning over my failed plan forgotten with this immediate threat.
Judging by the lightness of my spacesuit, the Rakis stripped me of all my weapons when they captured me, along with my first aid supplies. I’m completely vulnerable someone who’s wanted to destroy me since we were ten.
“Assassins?” I repeat, discreetly feeling the ground for any stray rocks. “How scary. I hope your dear uncle remains in good health.”
He lets out a breathy, bitter laugh. “‘Good’ is so subjective, isn’t it? Like, you look so good to me right now. Your glaringly bright colors are covered in black dirt. You’re pathetically searching for salvation you won’t find.” My fingers stop grazing the ground, and his lips stretch even wider. “And you’re finally exactly where you belong. It’s all too good to be true, if you ask me. Since when does Armanis Valah send his daughter right into our clutches?”
“Since he has no need to fear you anymore,” I lie just to watch the goading gleam leave his eyes. Just to infect his mind with worry, to make him wonder if there’s more to this than my failure. “Since we’re about to win the war.”
“You’re bluffing,” he decides, face blank as if someone pressed his reset button. “You always did like to pretend you were superior to me, that you were one step ahead of me, that you were privy to so much more than me.”
“I was, and I filled you in on everything,” I remind him, but he doesn’t hear me, his mind far in the past.
“Come closer, Valah,” he commands, curling a finger through the bars. “I have a secret for you.”
Swallowing, I eye the blade. “No, thanks.”
“Come closer unless you want this dagger in your leg.”
He wouldn’t risk throwing a weapon in here, even to injure me…but then, it’s him—he would do something that violently unwise.
I should coax him into delivering my dagger, but what if he hits a major artery? Without the means to heal myself, I won’t be able to do much with the weapon once I acquire it.
Reluctantly, I crawl across the dirty cell, collecting fresh smudges of black on my turquoise spacesuit. Once I’m close enough, he snags one of my two longer braids, the rest of my magenta bob glowing in my periphery as he yanks my ear toward him. The bars separate our faces from touching, but I feel his breath on every inch of my body.
“I hate you,” he hisses, and I don’t need to see his face to validate that. The raw emotion leaks into every syllable.
“That’s not a secret.” I struggle to keep my tone steady with the discomfort of this position, with the danger of his proximity. “Do you think I poisoned your crops because I wanted you to like me again?”
As far as I can tell, he doesn’t react to the reminder of the few dozen Morbaks we incapacitated several months ago with that agricultural attack—my one plan that somewhat worked.
“The secret is that I’ve always hated you,” he says, almost feverish. “All those years we spent constantly in each other’s company…all I wanted to do was cleave open your ribcage and rip out your pretty little heart.”
I try to block out those words, try not to let them sink into my fragile insides, but I’ve always been too open with him, damningly open. For the first ten years of our lives, we were attached, and I poured all my secrets into his greedy brain, secrets he told his uncle, secrets that have gotten countless people killed. Did he play me all along? Were we ever really friends?
Back in our youth, he had a tell when he lied, the faintest uptick in his tone. Now…now there’s nothing beyond the mania.
“You’re lying,” I insist, voice quavering against my will.
“Why would I lie to a corpse?” He nips my earlobe before shoving me away, leaving me reeling, unable to process anything, especially not his foreboding last words. “See you in the pit.”