Page 103 of Grave Situation

“Arimen,” I call as I walk toward the remains of the campfire, and yes, my voice is a little harsher than usual. “Come here.”

He jumps, his eyes widening, and looks to Coryn, who nods encouragingly.

“Wait here,” I tell Sweetie as we get closer, and she obligingly stops and begins cropping at the sparse winter grass.

“Be kind,” Jaimin warns as Arimen approaches.

“Nothing about this is kind.”

Coryn gasps, and I relent. “I’ll try.” My reward is a sad smile. “Could I have a hug?” I ask, giving in to the need that’s been chasing me all day, and the words are barely out of my mouth before his huge arms squeeze me tight.

I close my eyes and let go of everything just for one short moment, and when I pull back, I breathe a little easier. “Thank you. I needed that.”

“Hugs are free,” he assures me solemnly, and I manage a smile.

Then I turn to Arimen, who can’t meet my gaze. “It’s time you met the life stone,” I say bluntly, and he gasps.

“I-I couldn’t.”

“Strike that from your vocabulary. There are a lot of things that you’ll need to do on this trip. I don’t want you here—that’s not a secret—but the stone does, so youwilldo whatever’s needed to play your part. That starts now.”

Jaimin winces. “So much for kind.”

Dumping the stone into my palm, I extend my hand toward a visibly trembling Arimen. Is he…?

“Open your eyes!” Gods’ turds, what was the stonethinking? This boy can’t come with us.

Whimpering, Arimen jerks his eyes open. He looks at the sky. At the ground. At Coryn, then Jaimin. I’m seriously considering using my magic to flip him upside down, but then, finally, he looks at the stone.

And everything changes.

“Oh,” he says, and the reverence in his voice annoys me. Of course, everything about him has annoyed me so far, but given I had to force him to even look at the damn rock, I think I’m justified right now. “I understand now.”

Jaimin grabs my arm. It’s like he’s afraid I’m going to throw the life stone at Arimen’s head, when the truth is, I only contemplated it for a few seconds.

“Lovely. So glad you understand.”

Coryn gives me a reproachful look, but Arimen is so enthralled by the stone that he doesn’t even seem to notice the heavy sarcasm.

“Now that you’ve met the stone, allow me to tell you a little more about our mission.”

He shakes his head, eyes still on the stone in my hand. His intensity is getting a little uncomfortable. “If it’s what the stone wants, I don’t need to know more.”

Jaimin sighs, and in my head, Leicht groans. Coryn tsks and shakes his head. “You need to know alittlemore,” he lectures. “Talon can look after all the big details, but if you’re going to be helpful, you need to know what helpful is.”

I don’t know what part of that sentence terrifies me more: me looking after big details, or that I understood exactly what he meant.

But I do know that I can’t in clear conscience let Arimen come with us until he knows exactly what we’re facing, so I close my hand around the stone and stick it in my pocket.

His face falls, and if I had forgotten for even a second how damn young he is, the crestfallen expression would have reminded me.

What can the stone be thinking? We should be sending this child home to his mother, or somewhere else safe. Not dragging him along to fend off zombies while we hunt down the champion.

The stone pulses in my mind, as if to warn me not to even consider it, and I square my shoulders.

“You know we’re going on an important mission to find the stone’s champion,” I begin. He won’t look me in the eyes yet, but seeing the stone does seem to have given him more confidence.

As if to prove that, he nods. “To defeat a great evil,” he parrots what Jaimin said earlier.

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