"Let me accompany you; we are in a hostile territory; you shouldn’t be roaming alone," Faris apprehensively answered while drumming his fingers on the wooden table.
"No, I will go alone. I will probably shift and scan. Stay inside," Siroos barely murmured back so only his brother could hear, over the loud sounds in the tavern.
Someone was telling a rowdy joke and others were cracking up hearing it. After their drinks, Siroos fished out two silver coins and paid. They were Volsra’s currency. Lotus had provided them before they had left.
The girl who had served them had her face finally splitting into a grin when Siroos told her to keep the rest as he had overpaid on purpose.
"Anything else I can do for you two gentlemen?" She asked with a pleasant smile this time.
"Yes, we are looking for lodgings to stay for the night. You see we are here in search of some rare plants which only grow on the foothills of Astros to make our herbal concoctions. We save a lot of lives with it," Faris, as usual, tried to charm her with his sweet talk. It came naturally to him.
"We have lodgings for the travellers here. I will arrange a nice cosy room for both of you. Give me five minutes and if you need any other services, let me know." She meaningfully winked at Faris, adjusting her corset so more of her round breasts would peek out.
"I will, milady," Faris returned her smile as she turned and headed away towards the upper part of the tavern where there were rooms for travellers to stay.
"I am heading out, keep listening in case someone drops a hint," Siroos instructed his brother, handing over all his belongings to him before making his way out of the tavern. The place was suffocating him. His heart was restlessly pounding in his chest.
Once outside, he slowly moved. The night had fallen, and no moon was in sight because of the overcast conditions.
Siroos turned to the shadows, taking a turn into a dark passageway, he observed his surroundings using his keen senses. Finding no one seeming interested in him, he blended into the shadows and shifted into a bat. The creature of the night which vampires found least suspicious.
Taking flight, Siroos rose high, flapping its leathery wings and observing this new place. He was more interested in hearing what people had to say. Since bats had very sensitive hearing, he wished to rely on that.
Siroos flew around the streets, listening to the conversations of the people, looking for any clues that might lead him towards his mate or the prince, but he found none. He tried to find any signs of her, a faint heartbeat, a word, her scent, anything. But there were only rotten scents of the bloody vampires and cruelties they vetted out on humans and other factions that lived in Volsra.
He heard two people whispering about the cruel prince and how he vetted out punishments for even petty crimes. Discipline seemed to be his motto but only when it came to other factions. Vampires were allowed to run rampant.
His eyes were on the grand palace now, the giant structure with four minarets that reached for the dark skies as if trying to kiss the clouds stood in all its glory. The lit torches all around it made it appear less spooky but Siroos had an ominous feeling the more he neared the place.
’She is not here, I can’t feel her,’ his wolf lifted its head and announced. Siroos knew deep down that Kanyon wouldn’t keep her in an obvious place. In case they were attacked, that would be the first place anyone would look for her.
Still, he wished to ensure and assuage the rising troubled thoughts in his mind. Siroos took a complete round of the palace, observing and hearing what the residents were doing and saying. Although most conversations were just related to regular daily occurrences, a particular one caught his attention and he halted mid-air. Slowly flying he camouflaged himself in the dark where no light fell, to remain undetected.
Two vampire soldiers were having a hushed conversation.
"Prince Kanyon has been getting more secretive with every passing day. He hardly comes to the palace anymore," one of them said in a very quiet tone.
"Yes, I think he is working on some secret plans to get revenge on the shifter that burnt Prince Kamyn or so I heard. The commander has instructed for the ballistae to be mounted on palace walls and boundary spells to be placed all around," the other one added.
"Yes, I think Prince Kanyon has a secret hideout somewhere, a place only he knows about or only he can see. I won’t be surprised if he had already captured that shifter and was keeping him there."
The conversation made sense to Siroos, as Kanyon was indeed preparing for his arrival. He wasn’t afraid as he was well aware of his strength but the fear of what might be happening to his mate in such a place crept up in his heart and almost made it stop beating.
Siroos lingered some more, hoping to find more clues to where his mate might be, but understood that if the guards of the palace didn’t know, then she wasn’t here. He emerged from the shadows and decided to fly further in.
But there was an unseen barrier which prevented him from entering, meaning the place was under a restricted spell and only people with permission could enter.
It meant that the boundary spells had already been placed around the palace to prevent him from entering.
Lotus’s words flashed into his mind and he couldn’t wait for the moment to test it out.
The precautionary measures the prince and the monarch had taken to keep the palace safe and enemies away slightly surprised Siroos. Seemed like they were cowards, hiding behind spells. Throwing one last glance at the palace, Siroos flew away before he was discovered. He wanted to remain undetected until he had located Cassandra; only then would he reveal himself and burn anyone who would dare stand in his way.
Returning to the tavern, he observed through the window and found Faris in one of the rooms. He flapped his wings on it and Faris quickly opened it to let his brother in.
Drawing the curtains on the window, he turned to Siroos who shifted back to his human form and flopped on the squeaky bed.
"Did you find anything?" Faris abruptly asked.
"Only that she is not being kept at the palace but at someplace which is solely known to Kanyon and is probably under some spell so no one can enter," Siroos sighed with his dulled eyes scanning the wooden ceiling. It was chipping away.
"We have come this far, we will find her. That’s a major finding," Faris tried to reassure his brother and at the same time lift his mood slightly.
Both of them were in their own prisons, with one having lost his mate while the other one lost the woman who loved him with everything she had.