The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts-Chapter 669: Ruining your soul over a man who barely notices you is just so deeply not chic
She looked at Cyrus next. "I want the suspicious healers and helpers watched gently in secret. I don’t want them to notice. People speak more when they think the person listening is harmless."
Cyrus lowered his head. "I understand."
Then Isabella turned to Zyran.
He smiled slowly. "You do not even need to ask."
"Good," she said. "Because I was going to tell you to drift around like the pretty useless thing you pretend to be, and listen to everything."
Zyran placed a hand on his chest in fake pain. "Pretty useless?"
"You know exactly what I mean."
He grinned. "Yes, I do."
She looked at Luca next. "You keep your eyes on the hunting groups. If you see another dirt map, step on it, sit on it, fall on it, I do not care, just make sure it disappears."
Luca nodded with a face full of mission. "Gladly."
Finally, Isabella looked at Ophelia and Shelia with a small smile. "You two keep listening. Do not argue, do not defend me, and do not let them know you noticed anything."
Ophelia pouted. "What if they say something especially annoying, I don’t like people talking bad about you?"
Isabella almost got up and hugged Ophelia after that statement, because she knew the past Ophelia would have been even too scared to say this.
But now finally, after months of intense training and being around Isabella she was finally adopting her friend’s confidence.
"Then," Isabella said, "you smile and act as though your head is empty."
Ophelia looked scandalized. "My head is not empty."
"I know that," Isabella said patiently. "But right now it would be helpful if other people thought it was."
Zyran lost all control and laughed into his sleeve.
Ophelia turned to him at once. "Why are you laughing?"
"Because," he said, still failing to stop, "she said that so sweetly."
Shelia, who had been quiet until now, looked at Isabella and asked, "And what will you do?"
At that, Isabella lifted her chin. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖
"I will smile," she said. "I will greet them warmly, I will praise effort where it should be praised, and I will act exactly like a beautiful ruler whose mind is only on expansion, education, and the future, and when the time is right. I will wait for them to reveal their mastermind."
Zyran’s grin widened. "That sounds very evil."
"That sounds very smart," Kian corrected coldly.
Isabella gave him a pleased look, then continued, "If they came with poison under their tongues, then let them speak and count walls and watchtowers and pretend they are clever. The higher they climb while thinking I know nothing, the farther they will fall when I cut the rope."
The room went quiet again, because every single person there could clearly imagine the poor fools outside walking around with confidence while Isabella quietly arranged their future humiliation like flowers in a vase.
After a moment, Osiris finally spoke.
"So..." He looked around the room, then back at Isabella. "We are not throwing anyone out tonight?"
"No," Isabella said.
He looked disappointed. "That was my favorite option."
She gave him a long look. "Your favorite option is always violence."
"That is not true."
Zyran raised a brow. "Your second favorite option is also violence."
Osiris opened his mouth, paused, then shut it again.
Cyrus said gently, "He does have other qualities."
Zyran turned to him. "Name three."
Cyrus thought for a second. "He is loyal."
Zyran waited.
Cyrus added, "Very loyal."
Zyran kept waiting.
Cyrus looked at Isabella helplessly. "He is trying."
At that, Isabella laughed.
She laughed so suddenly and so brightly that even Kian’s cold expression softened when he looked at her.
Osiris looked offended. "Why are you all like this?"
"Because," Isabella said, still smiling, "you make it so easy."
For a little while, the room became light again.
Outside, the alliance people were settling in, smiling, whispering, looking, counting, and imagining they had entered Isabella’s village unnoticed.
Inside, Isabella sat surrounded by her people, warm under the furs and bright-eyed despite the tiredness in her body, and every now and then she would catch sight of Zara in her mind again, quiet behind that borrowed face and staring at Kian like a woman who had ruined her whole life for a dream that still refused to look back.
Honestly.
After black magic, soul bargains, a stolen face, and all that suffering, the man still was not interested.
It was tragic, yes, but it was also so embarrassing that Isabella almost wanted to send the woman a personal letter telling her to stand up and find a hobby.
Then she thought about it again and decided that no, actually, watching Zara continue to fail from a distance might be funnier.
So Isabella leaned back into the cushions, looked at the people around her, and said with terrible sweetness, "Let them keep going. I want to see how much courage ugly intentions can borrow before they start shaking."
And for some reason, after hearing that, Luca felt a little bad for the alliance people.
Only a little.
That night, when Isabella finally sat down with Cyrus, Zyran, and Osiris nearby, she rested one hand against her cheek and let out a slow breath.
Cyrus noticed first. "What are you thinking about?"
Isabella looked at him with a face full of tired beauty and said, "I am thinking that some people truly need hobbies, because ruining your soul over a man who barely notices you is just so deeply not chic."
Zyran choked on his drink.
Osiris looked confused for a moment, then nodded anyway as though the sentence made complete sense.
Cyrus, after one brief pause, let out a soft laugh.
And Isabella, who was already beginning to see the shape of the rot trying to spread through her village, simply smiled to herself and thought that if these people wanted to play games in her home, then they had better play well.
Because if they played badly, she was going to make their ending very ugly.
