The Spoilt Beauty And Her Beasts-Chapter 656: New Cyrus

The visitors had not been allowed properly into the village yet. They stood just beyond the main line, close enough to speak but not close enough to move freely.

Isabella noticed one more thing at once.

Only Zyran was at her immediate side now.

She looked around.

Cyrus was nowhere to be seen.

Her chest tightened for one ugly second.

Then a thought rose in her mind so quickly it almost made her angry at herself.

"These people are from Fifth City."

If they were from Cyrus’s city, then maybe he had chosen not to appear. Or worse, maybe he had left to avoid being seen.

That thought stabbed her much harder than she expected.

Before it could take deeper root, footsteps approached from the side.

Isabella turned.

And saw him.

Cyrus was coming toward them, but his appearance had changed.

Half of his face was covered with a dark veil-like mask. It did not hide him completely, but it hid enough. More importantly, his eye color and hair color had changed. The soft red hair she knew had turned black. His pink eyes, the ones that made him so recognizable, were also dark now.

He no longer looked like the same man at first glance.

Isabella stared at him for a moment.

She did not ask questions.

This was not the time.

Instead, what she felt first was not suspicion, but a sharp tug in her heart. Even though standing here could put him in danger, even though visitors from his city might recognize something about him if he was careless, he still came back to stand near her side.

So he had not run.

He had chosen to stay.

That alone warmed her anger into something steadier.

Isabella took one slow breath and turned her attention back to the visitors.

Fine.

If they had come looking for entertainment, she would give them entertainment.

As she approached fully, Kian turned slightly toward her. The look in his eyes clearly said he did not like this situation at all. He had already been talking with them, asking their purpose, measuring them, keeping them outside where he could cut them down quickly if needed.

Isabella, however, looked at him and said in a tone that sounded almost casual, "Kian, you know I can’t stay outside for too long. My feet will get cold. And it’s rude to let our visitors keep standing outside."

Kian’s brows drew together.

For a second, he looked like he wanted to argue.

These were strangers.

City strangers.

That alone was enough reason to keep them at the edge until he understood everything.

But then he looked at Isabella properly.

He remembered every other time she had said something that sounded too bold, too trusting, or too strange.

And he remembered one other thing too.

There had not been a single time she had spoken with that calm certainty and led them wrong.

Not once.

Kian’s jaw tightened slightly.

Then, after one long breath, he gave in.

He lifted a hand and motioned for the guards to let the visitors in.

...

The main hall of the stone palace was warmer than the outside, but the moment the visitors stepped in, the air still seemed to tighten slightly.

That was only natural.

This was not an ordinary visit between neighboring villages where people came in smiling, carrying dried meat and fake politeness while secretly comparing each other’s winter stores.

These people came from one of the great cities. Even before they fully entered, the pressure of that alone was enough to make the younger guards straighten their backs and the older ones narrow their eyes.

The city messenger walked in first.

He was not especially handsome in the way Kian, Cyrus, Zyran, and even Osiris could make ordinary people feel unfairly designed.

However, he had the kind of face that made people want to study him twice. His features were neat, his expression polite, and his eyes were very calm.

Too calm. He walked like a person used to stepping into places where others had to be careful around him.

The two men behind him, though clearly not useless, immediately faded into the background.

That was not because they were weak.

It was because the first man had the kind of presence that quietly swallowed attention. He was clearly the speaker.

The other two were there either to support him or to die first if things went wrong. In cities, people liked pretending they were civilized. In truth, they were just better dressed when they used shields.

The villagers standing nearer to the doors could not help staring. They had heard about cities all their lives. Ten great cities.

Ten huge powers where the strong gathered, where trade was dense, where rules were cruel, and where ordinary villages like theirs were usually looked at as if they were little more than mud and smoke.

Now city people were standing in their hall.

Honestly speaking, even the walls seemed to know this moment was strange.

The main hall of the stone palace no longer looked rough and temporary the way it had in the beginning.

The men had worked hard. The women had organized things well. The floor had been smoothed.

The walls had been lined with furs in places where warmth needed to be kept in.

New stools and chairs, still very much Stone Age and not truly elegant by any higher standard, had been carved and shaped properly.

At the very center, the main seat stood raised just enough to show who ruled the place.

That was Kian’s seat.

His throne.

The messenger saw it immediately. Of course he did. Men from cities noticed hierarchy faster than wolves smelled blood.

Isabella, who had only just entered and whose feet were already silently threatening betrayal because of the cold and her belly and the general disrespect pregnancy had for dignity, glanced around for somewhere to sit.

She did not think much about it.

She usually sat wherever was closest and most convenient. If the males around her disliked it, that was their business. Her back was the one carrying the tragedy here, not theirs.