The silence which followed that echoing, agonized shriek could have been cut with a blade. Whatever they had been arguing about-- and they did spend most of their time together arguing-- died unacknowledged as they stood, four statues in the dark and staring toward that unfamiliar voice. There was no mistaking the source. Or, at the very least, what the source was meant to be. Somewhere deeper down the twining tunnels a Courser cried out in pain, in desperation, and unspoken among them stood that one nagging question. 

It could be a trap. 

"We should get moving," Rajinder spoke in a whisper where moments before he had been nearly shouting. Jasmine looked to him with a certain disdain, which Cyneric had come to expect from the pretty little lady. 

"Moving?" she repeated, incredulous. "We can't just leave them." 

"I think you'll find we can," Cyneric answered her with spite to match, and Jasmine could only glare at him. "Whatever's found them, I have no intentions of becoming its next meal." This was the trouble with royalty. Cyneric had been nothing but a thorn in her side since they started this venture-- a princeling from some cult she'd barely heard of, convinced he should command the whole venture. Worse still, he had more experience than the rest of them. Not by much-- this was Jasmine's second venture, Cyneric's fourth, but he and his coldhearted knight had at least glimpsed the moors with their own eyes. Heard the shrieking winds... Thus, the pair of them made the better choice for leader. Jasmine hated that. 

"Wouldn't it be better to look, at least?" Melite always seemed to speak just above a whisper. A voice like fresh velvet, unassuming both in manner and in lineage. Jasmine knew her handmaiden to be nothing short of soft-hearted, virtuous. Her mother never would have hired a lesser servant. Still, her quiet voice seemed to carry extra weight in this place. Even Prince Cyneric tended to listen to her. "They could have simply fallen, couldn't they? And if something has attacked them, it could well follow us here..." As though to illustrate her point, Melite scraped a nervous hoof against the cobblestones. The noise echoed in every direction around them. 

"Why don't you go and look, then, Miss Melite?" Rajinder suggested, and stepped to one side of the hall to give her passage deeper into the caverns. The glint in his pale gilded eyes spoke a hundred words he was too well-bred to ever speak aloud, but it boiled down cleanly. You're the one I'm willing to risk. Jasmine felt a chill run down the length of her spine. She shook herself to dispell the automatic fear. No, they could not really trust Ser Rajinder. He was a knight, true, but not a knight of virtue. All that mattered in the world was looking after his precious godling. 

Still, it wasn't really a terrible idea... 

"You can go with her," Jasmine suggested, and forced herself to meet his piercing eyes. "His Highness and I would be quite safe here. You can confirm whether or not there is a threat at all." 

Rajinder looked primed to object, of course, but Cyneric interrupted him at a breath. 

"What a marvelous idea!" Jasmine had suspected the god-prince would approve. Anything to keep his own hide clean. "Lady Jasmine and I shall wait here, then, while you two investigate!" 

By the demand of rank, that was the end of it. Melite and Rajinder disappeared together into the dark, pursuing the screaming. Jasmine forced herself to settle down on the flagstones there. She could only hope they would be seen again.