Page 52 of Grave Situation

Ugh. I hate doing this—it always leaves me with a headache after. My teachers, including Master Samoine, all said it wouldn’t if I’d stop resisting it so hard, but how else is a man to react when he’s sharing his eyes, mouth, and ears with another person?

Grimacing, I warn Tia and Jaimin. “Master wants to talk to us all. He’s going to use me as his… puppet.” I deliberately let him catch that comment.

“Stop calling it that!”

Jaimin chuckles. “This is always so disconcerting to see.”

“Is it?” Tia’s fascinated. “How does it work?”

“We’ll both be in my body,” I explain, “participating in the conversation.”

Her eyes widen. “Can all telepaths do that? Maybe we need to train some of you to ride dragons.”

I shake my head. “Not all. And definitely no on the dragons.”

“Only the strongest can do it,” Jaimin tells her. “At both ends. Your brother is very Talented.”

I preen. “Don’t forget charming, intelligent, and handsome.”

His eyes flick over me, and he shrugs. “Meh.”

Outraged, I gasp, but Master telepathically clearing his throat drags my attention back to what I’m supposed to be doing. Though I take a moment to glower at Jaimin before I tell Tia, “Brace yourself.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Masterand I reach for each other, and I try not to wince at the odd, uncomfortable sensation of his consciousness melding with my senses. This isn’t a mind merge—he can’t tell what I’m thinking or see my memories. He only has access to what I can see, hear, smell, taste, and say right now. And even then, if I’m speaking, it’s unlikely he’d be able to wrest control of my tongue from me.

“How will we know if it’s Talon talking or Master Samoine?” Tia asks Jaimin. “Because I’m not that interested in Talon’s opinion.”

“I’ll sound like myself,” Master says… through me. Feeling my tongue move but not controlling it myself is unpleasant. I don’t actually know what it’s going todo. And hearing Master’s voice come from me is just plain disconcerting. I can tell by the startled look on Tia’s face that she agrees. “All right. Tell me about the attackers. You couldn’t tell they were zombies by looking at them?”

“Not until they started moving around with mortal wounds,” Tia agrees, recovering. “Otherwise, they looked normal.”

“Jaimin could feel the difference,” I remind them. “But visually, it wasn’t possible to spot.”

We look at each other. “Is that normal?” Jaimin asks. “We don’t have enough information. I suppose I assumed that the dead would look… dead.”

“Could they be newly dead? Their bodies hadn’t had time to… do the dead people thing.” I shudder at the thought—not that I’ve seen a dead body after it was buried. Personally, I prefer it when the dead stay in their graves. They say in the empire across the sea, it’s traditional to always burn the dead, not just when there’s pestilence, and frankly, that’s beginning to sound like a custom we should have adopted.

“That seems likely,” Jaimin agrees. “I don’t know what the theory behind raising zombies is, but practically, a body that hasn’t begun to decompose and still has all its muscle function would move a lot more easily.”

What a charming thought that is.

“It would certainly make it easier for the zombies to remain inconspicuous,” Master muses. “We wondered how they could already be on the continent but not have been noticed. A walking decomposed corpse should attract attention.”

“You’d certainly hope so,” Tia mutters. “But how can we be sure? What if the process of zombification restores the bodies to what they looked like before? Nobody could ever be sure if they were fighting zombies or not unless there was a healer there to tell them.”

“We can’t be sure,” Master says flatly. “Not until and unless a more decomposed zombie is sighted.”

I sigh. It’s not often I get to be smarter than my master. “Stone, were the zombies that attacked us last night newly dead?”

~Yes~

In the embarrassed little silence, I ask, “Would older corpses look the same?”

~No~

Smiling smugly, I say, “Well, that’s good news.”

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