Nocte Yin: Anti-Villain, Anti-Hero and Anti-Everything Else

Chapter Twenty

Seven islands in the ocean, green like emeralds laid before a bed of blue sapphires. Small, and minimal, the islands, spread at equal distances apart with one at the centre of six, appeared like small pebbles in a vast pool from afar, being pushed and prodded and pulled in the perpetual contrast to the stability that was the land. In the mornings, the sun would crest over the forests and wash the mists at the edge of the tree lines in gold; the evenings, the ocean waves would roll pass the sandy dunes to crash against the decrypted ruins of the forefather’s forefathers of the days before.

But no matter how far the waves stretched, or how agile they snaked across the sand, or how hard they rushed the beach with an almost militaristic approach, the most they had ever reached, the farthest they had ever touched, was that indecipherable, ever-changing line between grass and sand. What they yearned for, worked tirelessly for, day after day, regaling in an every-once-in-a-while storm or even moon-blessed tsunami, was the decrepit mismatched castle at the centre of the central island.

Six storeys, six entrances and six wings, it was a monstrosity in of itself. One side of pagodas, another of marble columns, another of snow-bricks, and one of the most intricate fleurs and glass double-doors to the most detailed stone balconies she had ever laid her eyes on. One wing was suspended over the lake, several towers sinking into the waters, spun with glass, delicate spindles, corals and reefs; another a pyramid stuck haphazardly on top, as if it were the last scoop of ice cream thrown onto the cone, with a large telescope protruding from the iris of the hieroglyphic eye carved into hardened stone.

But it was the foyer that was the most alarming for, although she had caught glimpses of the exterior of the jigsaw castle, it was the interior where she suddenly appeared, thrown into like ink pelted into water. And she knew, instinctively, that she could not be seen or heard, but rather she was to do the seeing and hearing, and for all intent and purposes she didn’t even exist in the room.

It was a cylindrical room with six evenly spaced entrances along the rounded walls. Each entrance was without a door, merely frames of stone leading to the woodlands outside. There were six chairs — thrones — between each open doorway, the backrests so large and tall that they drew her eyes skyward to gauge the three-storey ceiling. There was a dome, painted with the stars, magicked to move and reflect the planets and suns in the sky unseen in the twilight. In a rare bout of clarity, she could recognize and name the constellations on the ceiling, even some trailing the walls.

She was on Erisire; it was her only vapid thought.

When her eyes finally left the ceiling, she was not surprised to find the thrones occupied by several faceless men and women, as nameless and statuesque in their portrayal, or rather how they liked to portray themselves.

“Why have you come?” one of the women asked.

She knew that they were not addressing her, but rather to the man waiting outside of the room, leaning against the exterior wall in an act of patience. When he finally made himself known, coming into the foyer, his face just as faceless, his name just as nameless, she thought him familiar as she caught snippets of his brown hair and obnoxious gait.

“Ladies,” the man addressed with a short, mocking bow. “Gentlemen.”

Six thrones: three men, three women; they did nothing to reciprocate his feigned manners save to fix their eyes on him, cold, severe and with the weight of a thousand suns. Somehow, somewhere, she knew that the man was smirking, knew that he was tempted to raise a brow, knew that he was insufferable to a fault and had a hard time expressing the good inside of him because he was good, even if he would deny it.