Nocte Yin

Chapter Seventeen

Dire didn’t know how she did it. He had been in the midst of planning the war of his life (and an eternal one at that) when his sister called and somehow got him to pause his busy schedule of scheming, framing rivals, quenching rebellions, amassing an army and all that evil tyrant stuff, to play chess with her. Chess.

Only Nocte would drag him away from his empire to play a board game. (Okay, he had to admit, it was no ordinary game; it was the game.) Only his sister, his favourite sister, could make him worry enough to leave everything behind just for her. It was, after all, how she had hooked him in to build that Labyrinth she had so desired.

He withheld a sigh as said sister tore through her dorm in search of the chess set. He seemed especially sceptical when she pushed all her books to the floor, hoping to uncover something.

“Found it!” Nocte relished, coming out from under the bed.

Dire smiled. It was good to see her lively again.

“Do you like it?” she asked, holding it up for his inspection.

She saw his eyes glaze over and snickered to herself. Dire was a sucker for shiny chess sets much like Ebony was a sucker for expensive shoes, expensive clothes, expensive perfumes, expensive jewellery, expensive… well, everything.

(Ebony really did have too much stuff for her own good.)

Nocte placed the board on the ground and began to set up the pieces. Dire needed a moment to gather himself.

“Where did you get it?” he finally asked, eyeing the marble figures. “The workmanship is exquisite.”

“At Draco’s,” Nocte replied, placing the queens beside their respective kings. “It’s your birthday present.”

For the second time that day he was taken aback, surprised even, but understood that birthdays were important to Nocte. Satan knew that Dire thought Nocte’s birthday was important. For villains, birthdays were considered the marking of another year wasted, another year with no world domination. But Yins had more than enough time, more than enough birthdays to celebrate.

Turning back to the board, he admired the silver lining and the beautiful sculpted detailing. He knew Nocte had put in a lot of thought and time in the gift.

“I know it’s a bit early, but-”

“Thank you,” Dire interrupted softly.

Nocte smiled, glad that she had splurged on the thing. “Shall we play?”

Dire nodded, settling across from her on the floor, taking possession of the black pieces. They did not usually play chess, on account of Nocte’s constant losing streak, but for once she didn’t hesitate in starting a game, a white pawn that skipped over the first black tile.

“I did not know you wanted to play,” Dire commented, moving a pawn of his own.

She shrugged noncommittally. “I need the practice. We play chess in Strategy.”

He nodded and watched her place a knight onto the board, noting the steadiness of her arm as she moved the figures.

If he noticed something unnatural (and he did), he merely shrugged it off when he glided his bishop across the board to take one of her pawns. It was not until she had aggressively played out her queen did he think her peculiar.

The spark of intent in her eyes, the firm curve of her mouth and the resolve in her expression… He knew the signs, but did not voice them until he lost a rook to her. Imagine, the greatest chess player in possibly the whole entire universe losing a rook to a rookie, and he had not even seen it coming.