Fate of Elements Read Online Free PDF Page B

she didn’t look like she was scared, but she should have been. I kept a constant watch to make sure Dayna or one of her minions didn’t attack before she could control her powers. “You know my name, but what is yours?” If I was going to do whatever I could in order to protect her, I needed to know her name. Names held power. I wasn’t sure how much she knew, but I needed to learn everything I could about her.
    “Oh, sorry,” she blushed. “Raina, Raina Owens.”
    “Raina, such a beautiful name. It fits you very well.” I bowed slightly at the waist.
    Her cheeks flushed red as her eyes looked at the ground. “That’s not what I usually hear.”
    “Well, you are here now. Tell me, have you ever heard of Aimsir?”
    “Can I tell you something? I feel like I could tell you anything. I love to read, I always have. It is how I had my adventures because I was always too scared to have them in real life. So I read about them, anything and everything, always imagining myself as the heroine, saving the day and riding off into the sunset with the man of my dreams. Well, in real life, that never happens.” She paused and looked off into the distance.
    I wasn’t sure where she was going with this. “Go on.”
    “Sorry.” She shook her head. “I get distracted sometimes. So my love of reading, it isn’t just fiction, made up stories that I love, it is everything. Reading about actual people who genuinely have the strength and courage to follow their passion. I’ve read a lot. I can’t even begin to put a number on how many books I’ve read. And if you had asked me that question two days ago, I would have said no, but that was before I found the secret room in my uncle’s library. There he had five books hidden away. One for each element and a fifth one about all of them. Your history. The name Aimsir is written in stone over his fireplace.”
    I focused on breathing in and out, trying to keep calm. The five, she’d read the five books. She knew everything. I couldn’t hide certain things from my people’s past, or my own, from her.
    Tilting her head to one side, her gazed locked with mine. “Yes, I know what you’ve done, King Hallet, and about you and your people. Yet, I see something good in you. Somehow you are trying to make up for the past. Are you going to prove me right or wrong?”
    “I am going to do everything in my power to show you I am not defined by my past.”
    “None of us are.”

Raina
    I watched as his eyes briefly sparked red before going back to the black I had been looking at since I walked through the Skeleton Door. If I had been on the other side of the door, I would have been a scared little mouse, screaming and running away from him. But here, I was strong. I couldn’t explain it, something changed in me as I crossed that threshold into Aimsir. I could feel a power deep within me. Something just under the surface that wanted to boil over.
    If what I read was correct, I was the most powerful being in this world. While the books didn’t say my name specifically, they did say whomever walked through the Skeleton Door was the one. They couldn’t hurt me. For once in my life, I didn’t have to worry about pain or retreat into my books.
    There was a vibration to this world. I swore I could tune into it, sync the rhythm of my heartbeat to the energy here. Closing my eyes, I let the pulse of Aimsir fill me. I imagined myself lying in the middle of a field, the grass and leaves tickling my skin as they danced in the cool breeze. A small stream flowed over rocks, camouflaging the sound of the birds flapping around, bathing in the water. It reminded me of a simpler time when I was younger. When I could simply lie around all day without a care in the world.
    “Is there no room for me in your fantasy?”
    I opened my eyes and turned to look at him, lying on the ground next to me.
    “What? How?” I sat up and looked around. This wasn’t the same place we had been when I closed my eyes.