The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts-Chapter 649: If I cannot be happy, then she does not deserve happiness either
An idea rose in her mind.
If ordinary methods could not save her, then she would go lower still.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The room smelled of smoke, roots, and old magic. Shelves lined the walls, filled with jars of powders, teeth, feathers, dried eyes, and things Zara did not want to identify. In the center sat an old woman with grey hair and skin like dry bark. Her eyes were too bright for her age.
She looked up once.
Only once.
Then she smiled as if she had already read Zara’s heart.
Without being asked, Zara spoke first.
"I will do anything," she said. Her voice sounded hoarse even to herself. "I want to be beautiful again."
The witch’s smile widened slowly.
Her gaze drifted lower, past Zara’s ruined face, past the blackened veins at her neck, down to her stomach. She looked for a long time, long enough to make Zara’s chest tighten.
Then the witch clicked her tongue.
"What a pity," the old woman said. "Your womb is dead."
Zara’s face twisted.
The witch did not care. "And your body has already been touched by dark power once. There is not much left in you that is still clean."
Zara swallowed hard. "Can you do it or not?"
The witch laughed softly. "I can."
Hope flashed so violently through Zara that it almost hurt.
Then the witch added, "But a pretty face like the one you want does not come cheap. You have no children to offer. No future bloodline to bargain with. Your body is already half-rotten. So what do you have left?"
Zara stared at her.
The answer came before the witch even said it.
"Your soul," the old woman finished pleasantly.
There was a long silence.
Somewhere outside, wind moved through dead branches.
Inside, Zara’s heart pounded, but not from fear.
As far as Kian could love her, she truly no longer cared about anything else.
"If I give it," she asked, voice low, "will I become beautiful again?"
The witch smiled, and that smile looked far too pleased.
"You will become enough."
That was all Zara needed.
"I agree," she said at once. "I do not care. As long as Kian can look at me again, I will do anything."
The witch’s smile deepened into something ugly and delighted.
Foolish.
Pathetic.
Perfect.
What happened next did not feel like healing.
It felt like being rebuilt with knives.
The witch used black powder, blood, old chants, and something that moved in the corners of the room without a body.
Zara screamed until her throat went raw. Her bones felt as though they were being pulled and reshaped from the inside. Her skin burned. Her chest tightened so badly she thought it would collapse.
When it ended, she lay trembling on the floor, unable to move.
The witch crouched beside her and lifted the bronze mirror.
"Look," she crooned.
Zara looked.
And forgot to breathe.
The woman in the mirror was beautiful.
Not in the healthy way she had once been beautiful.
This beauty was sharper.
More bewitching.
Her skin looked smooth. Her features were refined and alluring in a way that made the eye linger. Her ruined face was gone. Her lashes looked darker. Even her mouth, when parted in shock, looked soft and dangerous.
She did not look like the old Zara.
She looked like temptation wrapped in a woman’s shape.
But the witch had not lied only halfway.
Her beauty was restored, yes.
Her soul, however, no longer felt whole.
Somewhere deep inside, she could feel strings.
Invisible.
Cold.
Something older and darker had touched her and did not fully let go.
The witch’s voice turned honey-sweet. "Now go. Bewitch. Lure. Cling. Hate. Those things will feed what lives in you now."
Zara slowly sat up. She did not care. She was beautiful again. And the first thought that rose inside her was not gratitude. It was Isabella.
The witch watched that hatred bloom in her eyes and smiled.
Good.
Hatred was easier to control than love.
...
Zara got a new identity with embarrassing ease.
That was how strong the new beauty was.
Men looked at her once and forgot to ask the right questions. Women looked at her twice and immediately started comparing their own faces to hers.
Traders lowered their voices around her. Innkeepers offered better rooms. Guards at small gates, who usually demanded names and origins, suddenly became polite and eager to help.
It was disgusting.
It was also useful.
Zara learned very quickly that this new beauty did not feel soft or natural the way beauty should. It felt sharp, like a hook under skin. People looked, and then they kept looking, even when they seemed to know they should not.
She enjoyed that power.
She also hated it.
Because none of it mattered if Kian did not look at her that way.
Through rumors, trading talk, and the constant moving mouths of gossipy people, Zara pieced together more news.
Kian’s village had not died.
Not only had it not died, it had risen.
The Lion Tribe now had stronger walls, more food, and more people.
And Isabella...
Isabella was not only alive and praised.
She was pregnant.
Pregnant with someone’s child.
That rumor hit Zara like boiling oil.
She sat alone in an inn room that night, hands clenched tightly in her lap, and thought until her head throbbed.
Pregnant.
That woman got to build a home, gather males around her, and carry children under Kian’s protection.
Zara’s own womb was dead.
Her hatred multiplied so fiercely that the curse inside her stirred like something happily fed.
"If I cannot be happy," she whispered into the dark, "then she does not deserve happiness either."
The thought rooted itself instantly.
That became her center.
Not Kian anymore.
Not truly.
Now it was Kian and Isabella together, and the need to rip that picture apart.
Her chance came sooner than expected.
A strong nearby village had already begun feeling irritated by the Lion Tribe’s sudden rise. The more rumors spread, the more annoyed its leaders became.
They had once looked down on Kian’s people as a small struggling village. Now traders were starting to compare them.
Hunters mentioned their smart defenses. Some even said that if things continued this way, the Lion Tribe might become more influential than villages with older names.
Pride did not like that.
Zara heard enough to understand there was an opening.
So she went.
She approached that high-ranking village not as a beggar, but as a useful stranger with information and an alluring face. She let the guards stare. She let the leaders wonder. She did not reveal all her cards. She only gave enough.
She told them what she knew about Kian’s village layout from before.
She hinted at their weak points.
She spoke carefully about Isabella’s influence, her intelligence, and the fact that too many males listened to her now.
She also, very softly, hinted that she had access to darker methods.
Black magic. Curses. Distraction. Fear.
The village leaders listened. They did not listen because they trusted her. They simply listened because they saw her exactly for what she was.
A beautiful tool carrying dangerous knowledge.
In their eyes, she was the kind of sacrifice that could be offered first if trouble came.
Zara saw that too. But she did not care. In her eyes, they were only a ladder.
She would use them to get closer to Kian and to Isabella.
Zara’s lips curved slowly, but there was nothing human in that smile.
"Isabella," she murmured.
