Chapter 726: What happened to you?
She could still hear his voice saying mate and hatchlings like the words themselves made him stronger.
Her hate for Isabella deepened whenever she thought of that.
Because why?
Why did Isabella get that kind of devotion? Why did all of them look at her the way they did? Why did Kian never once look at her with even half the same focus he gave Isabella without meaning to?
The answer did not matter anymore.
Not tonight.
Tonight, Zara had something else to do.
She had been waiting for the deep part of night, the hour when even the palace felt heavier and slower and when people trusted their guards enough to stop listening with their hearts. Once she was sure enough time had passed, she rose from her seat and moved toward the narrow opening high in the wall.
It was not a proper window. This was still a beast world palace made of stone, fur, wood, and practical survival sense. So the opening was high, narrow, and built more for smoke and air than for beauty. A human would have found it useless.
A beastman would not.
Zara stood beneath it and gave a low, strange sound through her teeth.
Then she waited.
Outside, the snow continued to fall.
Inside the room, the silence stretched.
Then there came the faintest flutter.
At first, it sounded like nothing more than wings hitting cold air. Then a dark shape dropped from above the opening and slipped through with practiced ease. It landed inside the room with hardly a sound at all.
For one moment, it remained a bird.
A large one too.
Black-feathered, narrow-eyed, and built for speed instead of beauty. Snow dusted its wings, and the small claws with which it gripped the stone looked cruel enough to tear through skin if needed.
Then it transformed.
The feathers pulled inward.
The wings folded and twisted.
A man stepped out of the shape of the bird with the kind of strange smoothness only beast people made look normal. He was lean and dark-featured, with sharp eyes and a mouth that seemed permanently displeased with the world. His clothing was made for movement and cold flight, and even after changing form, the smell of snow and night still clung to him strongly.
Zara looked at him and immediately said, "It took you long enough."
There was no gratitude in her voice.
No relief either.
Only impatience and irritation, as if she had been waiting for a servant instead of a dangerous messenger from another power.
The bird beastman looked at her bruises first, then at her face.
His expression changed slightly.
"What happened to you?"
Zara’s mouth twisted. "That is none of your business."
The answer made his own face harden, but he let it go. This was not the first time he had been forced to deal with her temper, and from the look of him, it had never once been pleasant.
So he stepped farther in and kept his voice low.
"You sent a message. Speak."
Zara folded her arms, then winced because the movement pulled at her side. That only worsened her mood.
Still, she spoke.
She told him enough.
Not everything.
Never everything.
But enough.
She spoke of the village that no longer looked like a village. She spoke of the walls, the watchtowers, the guards, the storehouses, the discipline, the way the people moved with trust in their ruler. She spoke of which outer paths froze faster in snow, which fires were left burning at night, which parts of the palace stayed most crowded, and which doors did not close fully when weather swelled the wood.
Then she spoke of timing.
Not too clearly.
Not so clearly that a person following her every thought would immediately see the full picture.
Only in pieces.
She said that the best moment would not be while everyone was awake and crowded together. It would be when the village believed the danger had already passed and routine had returned. It would be when warmth made people slower and when loyalty itself became a weakness because they all rushed first to the same person.
She did not say Isabella’s name in that exact moment.
She did not need to.
The man understood.
His eyes narrowed slowly as he listened.
Then he asked, "How did you get this close?"
Zara smiled without warmth.
"That too is none of your business."
That was not the answer he wanted, but again, he held his tongue.
This was because he was here for information, not for wounded pride.
Still, his eyes drifted over her face and bruised side once more before he asked, "And why are you like this?"
Zara’s expression became colder.
She should have ignored the question.
Instead, she answered too sharply, which only proved that the wound was deeper than the bruises on her skin.
"Because this place is full of beasts who forget their place."
The bird beastman said nothing to that.
His silence gave her room to keep speaking, and once she started, the black thoughts in her chest rose too easily.
Inside her mind, her plan was already shifting.
An attack was coming.
That much was certain now.
And in the confusion of an attack, in the tearing open of gates, in fire and blood and noise and panic, people became weak in very different ways.
Bodies became vulnerable.
Minds did too.
And Kian, for all his coldness, for all his hard white lion pride, was still tied to too many things here now. He had Isabella. He had a village. He had a sister. He had people trusting him. He had burdens. That made him stronger in some ways, yes.
But it also made him easier to wound in others.
If pressure was applied in the right place, if the right fear was put into his mind, if the attack came with enough confusion, then the proud lion would not look so untouchable anymore.
And that was where Zara’s true greed still lived.
Not only in revenge.
Not only in Isabella’s fall.
In Kian too.
In the old wanting that she had never managed to kill inside herself.
She would use this.
She would use everything.