The Weight of Wanting

I was a troublemaker from the moment I could walk. At least, that’s how I remember it. My mother, Anira—a patient seamstress with tired hands and a stubborn heart—used to say it often, usually with a sigh and a small, amused shake of her head. “Maren, what am I going to do with you?” I’d chase the cat like a wild thing, knock over her drinks, spill wine across the very fabric she’d spent nights stitching. And I always laughed before she could cry. Our little cottage always smelled of thread-dust and candle wax, warmed by the constant hum of her work. I remember those days so clearly. Stray pins would catch the light like tiny stars, scattered across the table or the floor—waiting to stab an unsuspecting toe. Sunlight slipped through warped panes in lazy beams, and fabric scraps clung to the corners like fallen leaves that never got swept away. I never knew my father. Mother told me he died in the war—some far-off battlefield, some nameless skirmish. And I believed her. Why wouldn’t I? She never lied to me. She never wept when she spoke of him, though. Her voice never broke. No fondness. No bitterness. Just a shrug and a quiet kind of acceptance. It wasn’t until I was older that I started to wonder. Not because I thought she was lying—just because I’d learned how adults sometimes leave out the truth to protect what matters. And the truth, as I came to understand it, was simpler: he’d been a mage from one of the capital guilds. A man whose name she barely remembered. A moment of warmth on a cold night. She never expected anything to come of it—until I came along. Despite all my mischief, Mother never once made me feel unwanted. Her employer used to lecture her—said a boy needed a father to learn strength, discipline, purpose. I remember once, hiding on the stairs with scraped knees and a stolen tart, I heard him say it again. Mother didn’t know I was listening. She just kept sewing, her voice low and steady as the needle in her hand. “There’s not a god alive who could make me hunt that man down.” She said it like a prayer. Or a curse. And I believed her. There was a time—brief, quiet—when Mother tried to court again. A kind-eyed woodworker named Thalen brought her strips of cedar and mulberry bark for dyeing, and once even carved me a little horse. He wasn’t loud or cruel. He smelled like sap and ash. I think she liked that. I think she wanted to try. But one summer evening, the lanterns flickered when I got upset over burnt supper. The wind howled through the shutters without a storm in sight. Thalen didn’t return after that. Neither did the others—the traveling cloth-merchant with the easy smile, the farmer with too many acres and no children. None of them said it outright, but I knew. They were afraid of me. Later, I think Mother began to regret never finding someone—not because she couldn't raise me on her own, but because I began to show something strange. Something dangerous. I had magic. At first, it was just a spark. Harmless. Even charming. I’d giggle, and the candles would flicker like they were in on the joke. When I screamed, the wind would answer—not always strong, but always there. My mother called it “a wildness in the blood,” though she said it with more fondness than fear. But as I grew older, the wildness changed. I started to hear whispers in my dreams—words I’d never read, never learned. And yet I knew them. I knew them in my bones. Their syllables came soaked in meaning, older than language. Ancient words. Forgotten words. Words of Power. Not the kind that made tricks at a fair or coaxed flame from flint. No, these words bent reality. Twisted it. With enough will, they could rewrite it. The guild-trained mages in the capital had ways to control that kind of power. Counter-charms. Rituals. Thick tomes with gilded corners. Teachers with firm hands and firmer rules. But I had none of those things. I was just a boy. Alone. Living in a village tucked so deep into the hills it took a week to reach anyone who might’ve taught me how to use my magic. But I didn’t know that as a child—how to hold it without being swallowed whole. When I was twelve, I still played with the other village children—the defiant ones. The ones who ignored their parents’ warnings once a game had begun. We were children. Reckless. Curious. And when they found out one of us could do tricks, they pushed. Teased. Dared. Until I gave in. I looked like any other boy in the village—slim, with a bit of muscle from chores, but not enough to carry the same weight as the lumberers’ sons. My black hair always fell into my eyes, and summers spent in the fields had given my skin a warm tan. I didn’t stand out. Not really. Not until the magic came. After that, every glance lingered just a moment too long—like they were all waiting for me to slip. That day, the village children gathered near the ruins of old Farmer Hallen’s barn. It had been abandoned for years—half-sunk into the earth, with boards rotting at the edges and the roof leaning like a drunk caught mid-stumble. Hallen himself was a bitter man, all silence and barely-contained rage. He feared us more than we feared him. And so, he left us alone. I remember the way the place smelled: ash, mold, and damp straw. The others dared each other to sneak inside. I didn’t need daring. I was already at the center. A showman without a stage. I’d learned a new set of words just days before. They’d come in a dream—like most of them did—carried on the sound of rustling trees and whispered through the hush that sometimes lives between heartbeats. I hadn’t said them aloud until then. But I trusted them. The whispers always led me somewhere new. So I whispered them into the winter air. "Therak’sol marun’kai." The syllables cracked the silence like flint against steel. And the world changed. The barn didn’t just catch fire—it exploded. Flames spiraled upward, dry hay gone in an instant. Children screamed as the air rippled with heat. The roar of fire was alive, devouring old wood and forgotten nails with crackling delight. A storm of embers swirled around me like fireflies gone mad. And I stood in the center of it, stunned. Not at the flames, but at how right the words had felt. They didn’t just summon fire—they created a moment. A tear in the ordinary. The other children fled, running to the parents they’d defied. The fire drew others—villagers with buckets, voices raised in panic. But no one looked at me. Not yet. I stepped out of the smoke alone, covered in soot. My tunic was scorched at the hem, my arms tingling from the heat. I wasn’t afraid. I was in awe. My mother came with the third wave of villagers, a bucket sloshing in one hand. When she saw me—saw me just standing there in front of the blaze—she dropped it. Water splashed across the packed dirt. She didn’t shout. She didn’t ask what I’d done. She just ran to me and pulled me into her arms, tight and trembling. I could feel her heartbeat hammering through her ribs into mine. She didn’t say a word. She just carried me home. --- The fire was put out before it could spread. The barn was gone, but no lives were taken. Relief came first. Then fear. That night, a crowd gathered outside our cottage. It wasn’t a mob. Not exactly. But it wasn’t peaceful either. They whispered about me. About what I could do. Some said I should be sent to the Capital—to be trained, controlled. Others said I should stay, but have my magic bound. Two crones argued loudly over the proper rites, each claiming the other misremembered the sacred words. The air outside our door was thick with smoke and suspicion. My mother stood in the doorway, pale but firm. "He’s twelve," she said. "Scared. You don’t bind a child for making a mistake." No one argued with her that night. But the fear lingered. The years that followed were quiet. Isolating. The other children avoided me. No one dared defy their parents’ warnings anymore. My world shrank to the size of a needlepoint hoop, stitched tightly around my mother’s home. The magic never stopped whispering. It coiled at the edge of my mind like morning mist, seeping into dreams, curling under my skin. Some mornings I’d wake with syllables on my tongue, ancient and half-formed—but I swallowed them down. I stopped speaking the words. Not out of fear. Out of promise. A promise I never said aloud—but made anyway. For her. And gods, some days it was almost too painful to keep. — As I got older, I started noticing things I didn’t have words for. The way my eyes lingered on certain travelers more than others—girls with sharp laughs, boys with quiet, unshakable strength. I never spoke of it. Especially not to the priest. He taught us weekly in the village shrine—a squat stone building draped in ivy, its bells rusted and half-swallowed by time. The air always smelled of old incense and mildew. He’d tell us men were made to labor. To provide. To marry and raise children. Once, another boy—half-curious, half-afraid—asked what it meant if a boy liked other boys. The priest didn’t call it sin. But his silence was heavier than judgment. He said it wasn’t the gods’ plan. That we should strive to stay within it. I didn’t ask any questions. Didn’t speak at all. But something inside me went quiet. And a thread of magic that had once warmed me curled cold. The only time I ever felt truly free was in the woods. Every summer, my mother and I would hike six days to the old hunting cabin her father had built long ago. It was half-rotted, ivy-choked, and slumped with age—but to me, it was sacred. Not because of its history, but because of what it allowed. The journey itself felt like a slow shedding—boots sinking in mud, sweat prickling down my spine, the air getting thicker with pine and moss. But then the clearing would open, sudden and golden, and the cabin would be there, resting in the hush like it had been waiting all year. And that’s where I could breathe. That’s where I could speak the words. Not just whisper them—but let them ring. Let them echo. Let them dance in the air like they wanted to. My favorite was always the same: Veltharun dosh’el kai’mir. The rain would come. Cold. Cleansing. As if the sky wept just for me. I never gave it my full will, though. I never let the magic pour the way it wanted. Because I was still trying to be a good son.