Free Elam by Kathi S. Barton Page A

think any more. As he drifted off, he heard a voice, low and full of authority.
    “Elam Benson, you’ll pay attention to me right now.” The king. Elam had no clue how he’d known who it was, but he was sure that it was the old king. “You going to let my son die too? You want your mate to be alone? You cannot die, do you hear me? A great deal is depending on the two of you getting better.”
    “I’m sick and no one cares.” The king laughed and Elam asked him why that was funny. “You have been here, lying about in this, for five days now, and no one has left your side but for moments. No one cares, my foot. Get up from this pity party.”
    A peace came over him. The touch to his face was no longer scary but comforting. As he let his body go, not in death as he’d wished for but in sleep, he wondered if Casdon was getting better too.
    “You hurt her. You’ll have to fix this if you wish to move on in this world.” He said he didn’t want anyone in his life; it was fine the way it was. “And having no children is fine with you? Not having someone to love you and Casdon, no matter what, that’s good as well? You’ll live a very sorry, sad life, Elam, if you do not get your head out of your ass.”

Chapter 5
     
    Ariannona adjusted herself on the chair again. There simply wasn’t any comfortable way to sit in the chair, especially not after sitting there for nearly a week. When she’d had enough, Ariannona snapped her fingers and moved deeper into the chair she’d conjured. Izic laughed at her when she sighed heavily
    “You should have done that days ago, mistress. I did tell you that it was most uncomfortable to even look at.” She nodded and looked over at the two men on the bed. Elam’s fever had broken last night, Casdon’s the day before. Both men had been too near death for her to want to think about.
    “Have you told the others what has poisoned them?” Ariannona shook her head. She said she was afraid to. “The young master, he blamed you for this. He does not know yet that he was right.”
    “None of them do. I had no idea either until I moved into their bodies while they slept to see how I could fix this. I saw it in his mind, Elam’s. He hates me and all that I stand for in his life.” Izic nodded and came to sit on the arm of the chair beside her. “They’re not going to be happy that I did this to them. I could have killed them all. But I will take care of it.”
    “You had no way of knowing either, mistress. It was not explained to you that it would harm them.” Ariannona said nothing but watched the two men in slumber. They would be all right now, and once they were awake and she told them what had happened, they’d tell her to leave. Not that she wasn’t going to go anyway, but it might make her feel better should they tell her to go. She was tucking memories in her heart, or what was left of it, to look at later.
    When Essie came in and sat across the room from her, Ariannona thought it was well past time to explain things. If she had her leave now, she’d not have to endure the pain of one of these men telling her to get out and to never return.
    “The blue rose, have you heard of it?” Without looking in her direction, Ariannona explained to her when Essie said that she’d not. “It’s of my design. I bred it to be my signature flower, I guess. When the king and queen changed me, gave me what powers they could, I was in nothing more than rags and decided that I wanted to stand out. The white of my hair, it came with the magic. I think that I was showing off. No, I know that I was. They, the great king and queen of the kingdom, had given me a part of themselves.”
    “Are you trying to tell me that this is an allergic reaction to a rose that you made?” Ariannona said something like that, but not purely. “I want you to explain that to me then. Why a flower that you made has anything to do about any of this. They were about dead, and something like that cannot kill