Bahram’s agents tore through the streets of Ctesiphon in search of his beloved sister. Yet, no matter where they went, they could not find the slightest trace of her presence. To make matters worse, Narseh’s agents would contest them around every corner in a bloody battle to the death.

The entire city had become unravelled in chaos, allowing bandits, brigands, cutthroats, and other criminal rabble took advantage of the situation to loot stores and burglarize houses. There had been several attempts to ransack the Frumentarii’s safe house. Yet, the roman agents were well skilled in the art of the blade, and protected their ‘property’ from any evildoers.

While Narseh had survived the attack on his life, he had retaliated by sending a group of his own assassin’s into his brother Bahram’s villa. Where the man was currently cursing at the latest news he had received from Hayla.

“You’re telling me that my sister escaped and is nowhere to be found? How is that even possible? You had one fucking task: bring Mitra to me, and you failed miserably. If you were going to attack my foolish little brother, you should have at last finished the fucking job! What use are you?!?”

Though Hayla felt dismayed by her verbal lashing, she did not say a word, and continued to bow her head at the Sassanid Prince. It was true that she had failed to complete a simple task. However, in her defense, how exactly was she supposed to know that Mitra would just bounce at the first sign of trouble?

The bitch was more covert than Hayla had expected. There was not the slightest hint of where she had run off to following the incident at Narseh’s villa. It was fair to say that at this point, she may have even escaped from the city altogether. If that were actually to be the case, the Bahram would never find the girl, no matter how far out into the world he sent his agents to look for her.

Of course, neither Hayla nor Bahram would expect the girl was hiding in the center of the city right under their noses. The very idea that she had aligned herself with roman spies, and was stashed away in their safe house, was something nobody would think of. Especially after the death of the girl’s father at the hands of the newest Roman Emperor.

Ultimately, Bahram was forced into a troublesome situation, if he continued to cause chaos in the city, it was likely that the other factions would side with Narseh and lay siege to his villa in an attempt to be rid of him once and for all.

However, if he abandoned his quest to find his sister now, the girl would likely slither back into the arms of that bastard Narseh, and use this incident as a tool to gain more followers for the man. Bahram could only slam his fist onto the table in a fit of rage as he vented his frustrations with simple violence.

After several moments of heavy breathing, to calm his nerves, Bahram exhaled heavily before giving his orders to Hayla.

“Call of the search for Mitra. After you have done that, don’t bother showing yourself around here ever again.”

Hayla gritted her teeth when she heard such hard words. That was until she caught a glimpse of an assassin entering the room from a nearby reflection. She quickly tackled Bahram to the ground. Which had invoked the man’s ire until he noticed a dart embedded into his ceramic cup.

The Sassanid Prince quickly scrambled to his feet, as he unsheathed his sword and met his attackers head on. Meanwhile, Hayla called for aid from Bahram’s guards.

“Help! The Prince is under attack!”

Iron clashed with iron, as Bahram, and the assassin’s blades met in midair. With a quick flick of his wrist, Bahram deflected the oncoming sword, and lunged forward, piercing through the assassin’s padded armor, and into the man’s heart. In his death, the man’s eyes widened in disbelief before he fell to the ground lifeless and in a pool of his own blood.

Despite this victory, Bahram had no reprieve as another attacker lunged towards his back with his blade in hand. However, before the blade could reach its target, a loud clanging sound erupted in the air, as a large bronze basin struck the assassin over the head and knocked him out completely.

Bahram gazed upon who had saved his hide, only to realize that yet again Hayla had acted in his best interests, preventing an otherwise lethal attack from taking his life. Perhaps he could forgive the woman for her failures, after all.

The third assassin, having witnessed the deaths of his two allies, and hearing the footsteps of armored guards rushing up the table, took the coward’s way out, and jumped out the window, hoping he could reach the next rooftop only.

Perhaps the gods were on the assassin’s side, but he successfully managed to escape the hostile situation, and immediately booked it out of the area. Not wanting to stay behind and risk his own death. The mission was a failure and the boss needed to be informed of this.

Narseh had made a grave mistake by retaliating. Bahram was just about to call off the search for Mitra, and let things go for now. However, after being attacked in his own home, he refused to lie down and let bygones be bygones.

After recovering from the shock of it all, the Sassanid Prince gave an order to the head of his royal guard.

“Prepare the troops. We march to Narseh’s villa at once. I won’t spare that bastard after what he pulled this day!”

Knowing this was a bad idea, Hayla tried to speak to the Prince out of this rash decision.

“With all due respect, your highness, this was simple retaliation against your previous actions. I think we can consider things equal and save our energy for another day. After all, if you march on Narseh’s villa, the only ones who will benefit are the other candidates for the throne. Please think this through.”

Though Bahram wanted nothing more than to exact a pound of flesh from his brother, Hayla’s words were wise, and thus he called out to the captain of the guard once more, just as the man was about to leave the room.

“Wait! I change my mind! We will leave things as they are… For now…”

With this order given, a war between the two Sassanid Princes was narrowly avoided. As for Mitra, she would emerge once everything had settled down, and take her place by her brother Narseh’s side.