Elements (Tear of God Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

game. Without a paddle, Mink had no way of avoiding Nyam’s touch, even if he were at full energy.
    Desperate to protect himself, Mink wanted to make for the cliff-side of Rift Ridge and take his chances jumping down to a ledge for cover. What happened instead was his leg gave out when he stepped, dropping him to his knee. His eyes pleaded with his parents. He didn’t think he could move anymore. The last of the weaponized dust settled into the ground and Nyam wound up a punch.
    Juré seemed to have a difficult time looking Mink’s way. Twice, he glanced over, but quickly dropped his gaze. Setting his jaw, Juré finally looked Mink in the eye and implemented by uttering, “Spear.”
    Instantly, a sharp pain shot through Mink’s chest and extended far behind his back as his Spirit was stretched out and pinned about twelve feet behind him. A completely unfamiliar buzzing sensation mixed with the pain. He recognized Juré’s instant-kill effect on an intellectual level, but he couldn’t rationalize that his father had actually used it. The last of Mink’s Spirit was pulled out the back of his head. He died with the snapping feeling of the severance of Body and Spirit.
    Death consciousness was nothing like when his mom turned his Body into a statue. Mink felt both as small as a speck of dirt and as large as Georra. Peace washed over him. He noticed the absence of any physical sensation, and felt no curiosity about anything, let alone his Element. His remaining consciousness focused on his parents with a dim familiarity. Time stopped.
    But, there was something else—another presence. Mink’s awareness expanded to include a personal vehicle on the cliff three miles up the ridge from where his Body lay. A person moved quickly toward the vehicle through tunnels inside the mountain. Tracing a line east from the vehicle through the ground and downward from the person approaching it, Mink’s focus honed in on a very large crystal. It was huge, encapsulated by a geode as large as any of the buildings in the Capitol. Mink was overcome with the sense that he now knew many things that were once important to him. He began to resonate with a different dimension.
    He snapped back into his Body to see his mom with an outstretched fist as he fell hard and fast on his rear, very much alive and sore. “Time! Time out!” Mink screamed, scooting away on his butt. “I rotting died!”
    “Language, Mink,” Nyam admonished.
    “Did you not hear me? I died!”
    Juré helped him to his feet. “Mink, your Element should kick in to try to save you now that it knows you can die. This is our next-to-last resort. Trust us. You won’t suffer any permanent damage.”
    Nyam folded her arms. “We need to exhaust you and take your weapons away so that you’ll only have your Element to rely on. You’ve probably gone so long without identifying with it that it’s retreated deep inside you. We must draw it out. This is for your own good.”
    So that was their game. Wear him out, destroy his paddle, and then strike him simultaneously. One of them was bound to hit a fraction of a second earlier than the other. Long enough for Mink to experience death, but not so long that the second Attack couldn’t cancel the first, bringing him back to life. Had Nyam been any later taking action, there would be no turning back.
    Something had happened while Mink was dead, although not even a second had passed. Had he made any kind of connection with his Element? He racked his brain for any sense of it. Only a flash, whatever it was. Then, Mink remembered what he saw.
    “Wait! After I died, I saw someone.” Mink pointed in the general direction. “Three miles up the ridge. A Machinist. Some ore scout, or something. He found a huge crystal buried inside the ridge.”
    Nyam turned to Juré with an unquiet look. He returned her gaze with a combination of recognition and disbelief. They paused in prolonged silence. Finally, Nyam spoke to Juré, “What do you want