Kingdom & Fire: Origins (Book 1)
Before the fire, there was the fall.
EPIGRAPH
“Elias… well, he’s strong-willed. Relentless. He’s a good kid. It’s my honor to be baptizing him today.”
He paused, the grin on his face the biggest I’d ever seen—before or since.
“The thing about Elias that you need to know is… he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘no.’ When he sets his mind to something, there’s nothing he can’t do.”
— My dad, before baptizing me at age 11.
Chapter One
FEAR NOT
“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
—Isaiah 41:10
Blasting through the mid-morning air came a beat no one had any business listening to this loud.
What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me—
Rowan’s head snapped sideways in perfect rhythm. Elias followed suit. Then back. Then forward.
The two of them sat in the rusted-out cab of an old truck, stereo cranked way past reasonable, bobbing their heads in ridiculous unison.
Rowan smirked, glancing at Elias. “You see the SNL rerun last night?”
Elias barely held back a grin. “You mean the skit?”
“Oh yeah.”
“And this time?” Elias exaggerated his next head-bob, shoulders bouncing with the beat. “Jim Carrey joins in.”
That was all it took.
The next moment, they were both full send—miming the skit, committing to the stupid, glorious bit like their lives depended on it. Rowan cranked the imaginary club bass. Elias squinted, nodding with faux seriousness, and together, they reached peak Haddaway sync.
Then came the finger-pointing.
Me? Him? Me? You? Him? Me?
Their hands shot out, accusing and redirecting blame in an increasingly aggressive, nonsensical loop. It was an art form.
Elias bit his lip, trying to keep a straight face. Rowan did the same. Neither succeeded. The truck shook with laughter.
For a moment, there was nothing but music, laughter, and the sheer absurdity of being alive.
And then—
The explosion.
It wasn’t the music. It wasn’t the bass drop. It was real.
A flash of heat. A wave of fire. A roar that tore through the morning air. Silence. Elias’s ears rang. Smoke billowed in the distance. The truck’s stereo fizzled out in static.
Elias tightened his grip on the steering wheel, staring at the dark smoke curling into the sky. This wasn’t normal. Not a wildfire. Not a plane crash. He barely heard Rowan’s voice from the passenger seat. “Elias. You seeing this?” Elias swallowed hard.
He was seeing it.
And it looked like the end of the world. The road stretched ahead, empty but for the flickering mirage-like waves of heat dancing on the asphalt. Except it wasn’t heat. Not in the way his mind wanted to rationalize. Something about the air was different. Charged.
The horizon was wrong—blurred, distorted—not from the sun, but from something moving.
Something alive. A deep, unsettled fear coiled in his chest. It was the kind of fear that didn’t rush in all at once. It crept. Slow and steady, settling into his bones, whispering a truth he wasn’t ready to acknowledge. His fingers tightened around the wheel, the ridges of the leather pressing into his palms.
He forced himself to focus. To push forward. But as they drove, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen this before. Not the fire. Not the smoke.
The aftermath. The silence that came after everything had already fallen apart. The first time he saw real fire—not the kind in a fireplace, not the kind burning low in a campfire, but the kind that devours—it had changed him. He was twenty-seven when he thought he knew what fear was.
He didn’t—though he thought he understood fire. He knew this feeling. He’d spent years studying it. Fighting it. Controlling it. But the fire he had known had boundaries. It could be contained. It could be stopped. This?
He had always thought courage was about charging forward. This was something else. This fire wasn’t just burning. It was spreading. It was becoming. And Elias had the sickening realization that this wasn’t something they were going to outrun. Rowan shifted beside him, his voice quieter now.
“Elias. Say something.” Elias exhaled. “I don’t think this is fire.”
Rowan frowned. “Then what is it?” Elias didn’t answer. Because deep down, he already knew.
Six months earlier…
“Dad, are dragons real?”
Elias paused at the doorway, his hand resting on the frame, silhouetted by the soft glow of the nightlight. Lena, now tucked under her blankets, peered up at him with wide, curious eyes. It was the kind of question every kid asked at some point, but somehow, tonight, it carried more weight. “No, sweetheart,” he said with a smile. “Dragons aren’t real.”
That much was still true.
But truth has a way of changing when you least expect it.
“Tell me a story, then. About when you were little.”
He sat on the edge of her bed, thinking. “Alright, let me tell you about the first time I almost drowned.”
Lena gasped, her eyes widening. “Almost drowned? Wait… the first time?”
“Yeah. I was under two years old. No fear, no hesitation. Walked right into the pool. Just—” He mimicked a confident, toddler-sized strut, “—right off the edge like I was supposed to keep going.”
“What happened?!”
“Well, all the parents panicked, obviously. Suddenly, it was like a full-on rescue operation. My mom dove in. Someone else ran for a towel because, you know, priorities. And my dad? Well, he just stood there, watching, probably debating if this was one of those ‘natural consequences’ moments.”
Lena giggled. “Did you cry?”
“Nope. Didn’t even seem to notice I’d done anything wrong. Just sputtered a bit, got scooped out, and—five minutes later—I did it again.”
Lena gasped dramatically. “No way!”
“Oh yeah. And again. And again. It turned into a game. Parents scrambling. Adults yelling, ‘Someone grab him!’ I was just having the time of my life.”
She laughed, shaking her head. “You were crazy.”
“Still am,” Elias said with a wink. “But you know what? I wasn’t scared. Not once.” That was the last time I could say I wasn’t afraid. Elias thought.
Lena yawned, snuggling deeper under the covers. “That was a good story, Dad.”
Elias smiled, brushing a hand over her forehead. “Sleep tight, kiddo.”
He stood, walked to the door, and turned out the light. As he stepped into the hallway, a thought lingered in his mind…
He had always thought courage was about charging forward, unafraid, ready to meet whatever challenge stood in his way. But over time, he had learned that courage wasn’t the absence of fear—it was stepping forward despite it.
Fear and Elias had always had an interesting relationship. He spent most of his childhood trying to prove he wasn’t afraid of anything—testing limits, pushing boundaries, daring fear to blink first. Sometimes, he won. Other times, he learned that some fears weren’t meant to be conquered. Some fears were meant to be carried.
Some fears don’t hide in closets or under beds.
They wait.
In fire. In ash.
In things that were…
Were not…
And one day—they rise.