Fire, Water, Sound, Emptiness and Death--these are just some of the Elements that Tina will need to learn to use and control if she is going to defeat the Chaos-created monsters threatening Beldarus. It's not as easy as it sounds--she can't wave an inanimate object around in the air or chant some select phrases from a long-dead language. No, she needs to get in there and actually become a part of all of the elements, which, she discovers, is at turns supremely dangerous, and, at times, life-threatening.You would think that being whisked out of the noise and commotion of our world and into a world in which you are reunited with a long-dead pet would be a sort of paradise. Tina soon discovers that this particulare "paradise" comes with a price tag--one that she will have to pay, or watch as the new world that she has adopted as her own, and all those who have become her most trusted and valued companions, is reduced to ashes and waste.

As she travels through Beldarus, learning that magic is indeed real, she struggles to harness her new-found powers while, at the same time, assimilate herself into this new culture--because she is there to stay, whether she succeeds or fails.