The Elementals · Book One
Prodigal Son
The chains were forged to last forever.
He was born to break them.
The Story
Society Binds Them, One Man Will Free Them
In the dawn of time, the people of the world gathered around places of power and their worship saw the rise of the elemental lords. These primordial beings gave gifts to their worshipers through the very elements that made up the fabric of reality. Gifts given freely and joyously, until one day they were betrayed. Bound by the very gifts they had given, their power jealously hoarded by an emerging ruling class.
The Lords were bound. The world endured. And magic — the birthright of all living things — became the privilege of a new noble class, passed through bloodlines descended from first people who carried out the betrayal.
For a thousand years, this has been the truth of the world. Commoners are born with little or no power, and die in poverty or servitude to the nobility. The nobles wage their endless petty wars over what territory power can enforce. And the world slowly withers under a burden that few understand will end in destruction.
Then three siblings lose their parents in a war of petty power. And the eldest, Drandal Widdon, through barely contained rage and selfless sacrifice begins to realize that perhaps, there is a better way.
The Protagonist
Drandal Widdon
Emergents — commoners whose elemental gifts break free of the Great Working — are rare. They appear only through great grief or conflict, manifesting a single element with raw, untrained power. They are feared, hunted, and almost always destroyed before they can learn to control their gift and upset the delicate balance of noble power.
Drandal Widdon is not like other Emergents. When his gifts break free, he manifests not one element — but all five. He is what the nobility has feared for a millennium: the child spoken of in the oldest prophecy, the Prodigal Son who was promised when the chains bound the last Elemental Lord. The one who would return what was stolen.
But prophecy is not a plan. And being chosen is not the same as being ready.
"Five elements. Not one. Not two. All five, a maelstrom of power and rage — will these gifts set the world free or bring about the final end?"
The World
The Elementals Universe
The Great Working
The ritual that bound the Elemental Lords and locked magic behind noble bloodlines. An act that twisted the fabric of the world — and the wound that has never healed.
The Elemental Nobles
The nobles hold true power, both secular, and Elemental. Their wars are constant, their desires petty and deadly to the commoners who live powerless to serve or die.
The Emergents
Commoners whose elemental gifts break through the suppression of the Great Working. Rare, feared, and hunted and never to rise to power.
The Bound Lords
Five elemental gods, imprisoned for a thousand years. Their power shaped the world and now they yearn to restore balance to their creation.
Project Status
Currently in Development
Prodigal Son is Chris Bailey-Smith's debut novel, currently being written with the intention of pitching to literary agents.
Updates on progress, world-building notes, short stories and novel excerpts will be shared on substack.
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