Page 17 of Legend of Scorpio
He stumbled but kept his feet, dragging her along. They had to keep moving because the wall didn’t stop at the rift but kept coming. Rebecca said nothing as she clung to him. His grip around her remained tight as he sprinted, over a knot of lines then past. He then had to slow, needing to carefully watch where he put his feet.
Not careful enough. He once more hit the edge of some markings, and the wall closing in moved faster.
In good news, he could see the end of the tunnel. In the bad? He saw no way out, just a smooth wall. No hole. Nothing.
Still, there was nowhere else to go. Surely whoever built this place had a way of getting past.
They reached the dead end, and Scorpio set Rebecca down. To dispel the gloom, as the moving wall blocked the glow behind them, he put a hand on the close wall, and, to his surprise, symbols lit.
“Are those the same markings as the outside arch?” Rebecca murmured, peering at them with curiosity.
“Yeah.” But what did it mean? He glanced over his shoulder and saw the stone wall coming at them fast. He estimated they had less than a minute to figure out the puzzle.
“Try pressing yours.”
He slapped at the symbol Scorpio. Nothing. He tapped them all as the tunnel shortened. Nothing he did had an effect.
“Might be they have to be done in a certain order,” Rebecca stated with a frown.
He tried again. Capricorn first, then Aquarius and Pisces. He did all twelve in order to no avail. The wall was mere paces away and not slowing down.
“It didn’t work.” His frustration emerged in those huffed words. To think he’d die so ignobly, crushed by stone.
“You did it by calendar month, but aren’t they related to the solstices?” she murmured. She began tapping them, starting with Aries. “Aries is the start of the spring equinox.” She then did them all as Scorpio watched the advancing wall and wondered if getting crushed would hurt or if they’d die before the pain had a chance to register.
Click.
The door opened just in time for them to tumble through.Thud. The moving stone came to rest in the spot they’d been standing in.
“That was close,” he exclaimed. Close, but they’d survived.
And that called for a celebration.
CHAPTER 6
The kiss tookRebecca by surprise and, at the same time, didn’t. After all, they’d both almost died. This time, she didn’t protest but let him kiss her because she felt the same joy as he did at the fact they’d survived and beaten whoever built those traps.
His lips moved sensually over hers, stealing her breath, increasing her pulse, boiling her blood—and warming other parts. However, the embrace ended almost as quick as it began with him murmuring. “We should probably see where we ended up.”
He had a point, but she couldn’t help a tinge of disappointment. She didn’t let it show as she stated, “Holy darkness. Can you get the rock to do that glowy thing again?”
“Let me see. First, I need to find a wall.”
“Find it.”
He moved away from her—which made her a little nervous given they could see nothing. Who knew what lurked or what pitfalls waited to be triggered?
“It should be right around here somewhere,” he murmured. A few seconds later, the walls began to glow, and unlike the other tunnel, all of them lit up at once, showing they stood in a strangely shaped room, maybe twenty or so feet across. It tookher a moment to count and count again before she stated, “I’ve never seen anyone use a tridecagon shape for a building.”
“A what?”
“Thirteen-sided shape,” she murmured. “So odd, seeing as how it’s considered an unlucky number.”
“Only in Western cultures. The Egyptians actually loved it.”
“You think they built this place? They would have had the skills to do so,” Rebecca mused aloud.
“Possible.” He crouched to eye the floor of smooth stone.