Free Elam by Kathi S. Barton

don’t know what’s wrong with me, and it’s only been since you’ve been here. It has to be you. You’re doing this.”
    “You think I’ve put some sort of spell on you or something? That I’ve come here to kill you off?” He nodded, then leaned over and did empty his gut. When he rolled to his back, she was on his chest then and holding his head with her hands. “Look at me.”
    “I’m sick.” She said that she knew that. “I can’t...what’s wrong with me? I feel like I’m dying.”
    “You are.” As he rolled to his side again, knocking her off, he felt like he was throwing up all the way from his toes. And when he glanced up, he saw that Casdon was sick too, his dragon lying on the grass with his brothers all around him.
    Elam closed his eyes only to have someone yelling at him to open them. It was Ariannona again, but she was so out of focus for him that he was sick all over. Twice she screamed at him to wake, and both times he couldn’t do it without a great deal of effort. Finally, he gave up and let his body slip away.
    Chills, then fire, racked his body. One minute he was so cold that he was sure he’d been put in the freezer. The next he was so hot that he asked if Casdon was trying to kill him. At least he thought he had. His mind was as fuzzy as his body hurt.
    People came and went in his vision. His mom, then dad was there. Someone was holding his hand. Then another time he was being dangled from one of the dragon’s claws. He felt his skin crawl with bugs, flaying his skin off him as they ate their way to his heart. He heard someone saying his name, but he shied away from it, knowing that danger was there for him.
    “Elam.” He looked then, his body so weak that he could no longer shiver. His head was sick with trying to think, and he knew that he was as close to dying as he’d ever been. “Elam, can you hear me?”
    “Yes.” He felt the pain in his throat, like a torch had been set to it and was still burning brightly. “I hurt.”
    “I know you do. I’m trying to fix it.” He nodded once, then stopped. It was too hard to move, much less be sick again because of it. “Do you know who I am? Can you see me?”
    “Mom.” He had no idea why he knew it was her, but he felt a little better knowing that she was coming for him at his death. “I’m so sorry about the cookie jar. I wanted to replace it, but you got sick.”
    “I did. But I knew that you’d had help in breaking it.” He nodded again and felt his belly burn again. “Don’t move. I’m looking you over. My goodness, child, why are you still alive? Just die already.”
    That made him stop and think; even through the pain he knew that wasn’t right. He wanted to ask her if she thought him ready to pass over, but he felt her touch on his skin and pulled away from it. When he opened his eyes, even for the briefest of moments, he saw Ariannona there.
    “That was you. You made me think that my mother would say that I should just die.” She shook her head and he could see the tears on her face. “She’s looking me over and said I should die already. But it wasn’t her. It was you. All this time, it was you.”
    He closed his eyes again and felt another touch to his brow. Cold and hateful, Elam tried to get away from it. On some level he knew that he was hurting someone, and he thought that it might be someone important to him. But he was sick again and tried to shut the pain off by letting himself slip away. The next time he woke he was being tied down, or so his fevered mind thought.
    Elam lashed out at the person trying to hold him. He had no idea what they thought they were doing, and he wanted to tell them to just let him die. His magic was useless now. He was too weak to call on it, and even if he did have the ability to, he had no idea what he was supposed to do.
    “Elam?”
    He didn’t answer the voice this time. He knew that whoever it was, they were not going to be helping him. He was tired. Too tired to