"Ouch, what was that for?" Orion blurted with his cheek reddened from the slap as he pressed a hand against it, the sting almost bringing tears though he forced himself to hold firm.
Na-Ri and Adela stared in silence with wide eyes, their shock plain as their gaze shifted from Kyle to Orion, then to the shattered amulet on the ground, until at last the grey-haired beauty broke the pause with a faltering voice:
"Why did we come here?"
Kyle gave a humourless laugh.
"Oh, marvellous. You were not even aware your own legs carried you into this place, and you were all but ready to march into a trap?"
He gestured towards the faint discolouration that betrayed another hidden door.
Reasoning ran clear in his mind. That passage was most likely the path the zealots used to come and go, and she had been on the verge of flinging herself into it, driven by humanity's most dubious curse: curiosity.
Had he not stopped her, something dire might have occurred.
***
