Not because she was jealous, because jealous was not even the word and not even the right story.
Isabella did not feel threatened by Zara, and she certainly did not think Kian would suddenly fall apart over a woman behind a veil.
No, what made her want to grab Zara by the shoulders and shake her very hard was the sheer stupidity of it all.
This woman had ruined her own face, damaged her own body, sold away part of her soul, and dragged herself through black magic filth for a man who barely looked at anyone unless he had a reason.
If foolishness were food, Zara would have fed a kingdom.
Isabella kept her face smooth and lovely, then she gently looked away before anyone noticed that she had been staring too long.
She needed to act as though she knew absolutely nothing, because this was not the kind of thing one exposed without preparation.
Unfortunately for Zara, Isabella was not the only sharp one in the room.
Zyran had already noticed her too, and he noticed her for a very different reason. He did not first notice the face, or the veil, or the little careful glances, because he noticed the deadness wrapped around her soul before anything else.
As the son of Anubis and soone tied to the underworld in ways most people here could not even imagine properly, he could tell at once that sothing was very wrong with her spirit.
She felt like a person who was still breathing while part of her had already been filed away sowhere below.
To Zyran, that kind of feeling was as obvious as smoke in a bright room.
Then, after that first unpleasant recognition, mory followed quickly.
He had crossed paths with Zara before, and although he had never considered her important enough to waste much thought on, he rembered well enough that she had caused Isabella minor troubles in the past.
She had been irritating then, and seeing her return now with a dead-feeling soul and a new face made him dislike her even more.
Cyrus also noticed, because Cyrus was the sort of person who would notice a drop of poison in a lake and still sohow look gentle while doing it.
His snake blood reacted badly to things twisted by dark arts, and Zara practically carried that twisted scent around like cheap perfu.
He did not know every detail at once, but he knew enough to dislike it deeply. Plus the night she disappeared he had sensed the demonic energy surrounding her.
So today he sensed it imdiately along side with her aura. And this ti around it was easier to tell because it was a lot of demonic aura surrounding her.
He knew Zara had always leaned in the direction of harm when Isabella was involved, and that alone was more than enough reason for Cyrus to quietly place her on the very unpleasant side of his mind.
Kian, on the other hand, only noticed that one of the new healers kept looking at him through the veil.
The problem for Zara was that this was Kian.
He noticed because a person staring too much in his territory was worth noting, but he did not care enough to chase the feeling any deeper.
He had no reason to study her energy closely, because to him she was simply one more person from an outside group whose intentions had yet to be weighed properly.
He felt that sothing about her attention was odd, but the feeling passed no further than that.
anwhile, Osiris could not have cared less if an entire mountain of mysterious won had been wheeled into the room on golden carts, because his attention was almost entirely on Isabella and whatever expression happened to be on her face.
As long as she was fine, the rest of the room could sort itself out.
To be honest, this was both sweet and very stupid, but nobody in the room had enough free ti to explain that to him.
After Bubu finished speaking, Isabella allowed herself one slow breath before returning her attention fully to the alliance discussion.
If Zara had co here for Kian, then she had picked the worst possible ti, the worst possible thod, and perhaps the worst possible life choices in general.
Still, Isabella was not about to tear open the problem imdiately.
That would be ssy, and Isabella hated being ssy in public unless the outfit was extraordinary enough to justify it.
So she simply continued the discussion in that calm, clever way of hers, and before long it beca clear to everyone present that the alliance would proceed.
The head of the other village looked relieved and pleased, because from his point of view things had gone far better than expected.
He had arrived hoping to secure a connection to a rising power, and now he was leaving with exactly that.
However, while his smile looked sincere enough, Isabella was not stupid enough to think sincerity spread evenly across an entire group just because one man seed reasonable.
In every village, in every family, and in every room where power gathered, there were always extra hands trying to stir the pot when no one was looking.
That truth, unfortunately, did not need long to prove itself.
When the alliance eting finally ended and Isabella returned to rest, life in the village appeared to move along normally on the surface.
New people were guided into temporary living areas, nas were recorded, duties were discussed, and food was distributed in the usual organized way.
Everything looked proper and manageable.
Everything looked exactly like the kind of smooth beginning that made later trouble so annoying.
Among the newly arrived people were several hunters who had been sent to join local hunting parties, and on the surface they seed useful enough.
They asked the right questions, moved with eager faces, and acted grateful for the chance to learn the routes and help provide for the growing territory.
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