I Left… and Everyone Lost Their Minds novel · Chapter 1 of 12
Chapter 1: The Night of the Zenith Moon
On the Night of the Zenith Moon, the heir to the throne held a banquet at the Marble Palace and expelled all his consorts from the harem.
He did it for one woman.
For Briseida, his favorite, who sat at his right hand in a dark red dress, a goblet in her hand, smiling as if the night belonged to her.
The rest of us consorts were called into the hall one by one.
There were twenty-three of us.
A chamberlain read our names aloud, and a guard placed a leather pouch of gold coins in our hands.
"With His Highness's gratitude," the chamberlain said, without looking at anyone.
The others smiled.
Some cried with relief.
They had families in the provinces, country houses, sisters waiting for them with dinner on the table.
They left the hall with the pouch pressed to their chests and torchlight in their eyes.
I was the last.
"Consort Lia," the chamberlain read.
I walked to the center of the room with my back straight, as I had learned to do for twenty-one years.
Prince Severino didn't even look up.
He was stroking Briseida's hand.
A guard placed the pouch in my palm.
It weighed like a brick.
I let it fall.
The coins rolled across the marble with a long, tinkling sound that echoed through the entire hall.
No one laughed.
No one said a word.
I walked out on foot, without looking back, down the colonnaded hallway.
It was cold outside.
The moon was covered in a gray veil, and the whole sky looked like a stain of ash.
I walked to the gardens.
I sat on the edge of the fountain, under a willow tree.
The other consorts had already left in carriages, amid laughter and embraces.
I stayed alone, in my court silk dress, with frozen feet.
I had nowhere to go.
I arrived in this world at twenty years old, from another reality.
One September morning in Mexico City, I fainted on the subway, and woke up in a silk bed with a cold voice in my head.
[System Message: Welcome, host. Mission: conquer the four most influential men of the empire. Reward: return to your world.]
Four men.
The crown prince.
The general of the north.
The chancellor.
The Emperor's physician.
Twenty-one years.
I tried them one by one.
And one by one, I failed.
That same night, as I sat on the edge of the fountain, the system spoke to me for the last time.
[System Message: Objective four, definitive failure. Mission canceled. Termination procedure available.]
I closed my eyes.
"What procedure?"
[System Message: When this body dies, you may return to your family.]
I stayed very still.
I thought of my mother.
In her kitchen in the Narvarte neighborhood, with the plastic tablecloth and the smell of beans.
Her small hands smoothing my hair before I went to school.
Twenty-one years.
I had turned forty-one in this world.
I already had gray at my temples.
And I couldn't remember the last time someone had called me by my real name.
I stood up.
I walked aimlessly through the park, under the willows, until my feet carried me on their own to the far end of the garden, where the grass grew tall and the lanterns had no more oil.
There was the gate.
A black, wrought-iron gate, half-collapsed, with a rusty chain.
Behind it, a huge, silent house with broken windows.
The Sunset Palace.
The place where they sent consorts who were no longer useful to die.
Everyone knew it.
No one spoke of it.
I ran my hand over the chain.
It gave way with a creak.
The gate opened just enough to let me through.
I entered the courtyard.
There were dry leaves everywhere, a broken fountain, and a smell of dampness.
And a stone bench under an arch, with a wooden beam above it.
I looked at the white silk ribbon tied around my waist, the one they'd given me in the harem to tie up my hair.
I untied it.
I ran it through my fingers.
It was soft and long.
My hands were shaking.
I didn't leave a letter.
I didn't leave a word.
I didn't want anyone to look for me.
Or anyone to remember me.
I climbed onto the bench.
I tied one end of the ribbon to the beam, with a knot I learned as a child at summer camp.
I took a deep breath.
The air smelled of wet earth and ash.
Then I heard something.
Far away, at the far end of the garden, inside the Marble Palace, a man's voice.
Then another.
And another.
Desperate voices, shouting a name.
My palace name.
"Lia! Lia!"
I could have sworn there were four.
I stood frozen, the ribbon in my hands.
And I didn't know if they were real, or if I was already starting to fade away.
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