The Weight of Wanting

Chapter 3: A Chance Meeting

A year passed, as they often do.

I found myself in a strange place. I had no father to teach me a trade, and no real talent for my mother’s craft. I wasn’t good with a needle. I didn’t have the steadiness or the patience for fine thread. But I wasn’t a fool either, and I could work hard when it counted.

That’s how I ended up in the good graces of Harlan Mett.

He was a sonless farmer, rough and gruff but fair when it mattered. Our relationship was uneasy at first—my name still carried the shadow of fire, after all—but nearly five years without incident had earned me some goodwill. Eventually, he took me on as an apprentice of sorts. There was land to till and fences to mend, and he figured I was strong enough and quiet enough to be useful.

That year, though... that year was dry.

The rain didn’t come. Not enough to matter. Crops withered in the fields, and the soil cracked in long spiderwebs beneath our boots. Harlan knew if he didn’t yield a harvest, the kingdom would strip him of his land. It was the right of the tyrant king, and the man had already seen too many of his neighbors fall under that decree.

One night, after dinner, I found him out on the porch with a bottle half-gone and a look in his eye that wasn’t just tired—it was hollow.

“We’re done,” he muttered. “I’ve seen dry years, but this... this is different.”

I watched him drink. Watched the fields vanish into darkness. And I thought about the words. The ones I’d sworn not to use.

But I didn’t want to lose this. My mother needed the roof over her head. I needed the work. And deep down, I still wanted to be more than a mistake.

So that night, after he passed out in his chair, I crept out of the house and walked to the center of the fields.

I took a breath, closed my eyes, and gave the words more will than I ever had.

“Veltharun dosh’el kai’mir.”

The cloud that formed wasn’t a trickle. It wasn’t gentle.

It rose—tall and wide—then burst open in a torrent of rain. Cold. Cleansing. Real.

I stood there, soaked to the bone, feeling the magic run down my arms like a second skin.

That might’ve been the end of it.

If not for Harlan’s eldest daughter.

She’d been sneaking home late from her betrothed—the blacksmith’s boy. She didn’t see me. But she saw the rain. Saw it falling only on our fields, and nowhere else.

She screamed. Not in fear—in joy. Wild, unrestrained joy.

“The rain’s come back!”

She woke the house, dragging everyone outside. They stood and stared at the storm—our storm. Just our patch of earth. Not even the whole field.

But it was enough.

Harlan’s wife dropped to her knees, whispering thanks to the gods. His daughter laughed and spun barefoot in the mud.

And Harlan?

Harlan just watched the sky. Silent. Jaw set.

---

The next morning, when I came to tend the fields, Harlan was already waiting.

“Was it you?” he asked. No greeting. No hesitation. Just those three words.

I tried to lie. I really did. But I’ve never been a good liar.

“Yes,” I said. “It was me. I’m sorry. I just... I didn’t want us to lose the farm.”

I even swore to the gods I’d never use the words again if he let me go.

Harlan stared at me for a long time. His face unreadable.

Then he grinned. Crooked and sharp.

“Never use them again? Are you kidding?” He laughed once, loud and bitter. “Boy—we’re going to make a fortune.”

He dropped the plough, clapped an arm around my shoulders like we were partners, and marched me straight to the biggest farmstead in the village. Told me to wait outside.

He went in alone. Made his pitch.

A deal was struck.

He offered my storms to any farmer who could pay.

And me? I got a cut.

---

A few weeks later, I was working near the main road when I noticed a man watching me.

He was dressed in a riot of mismatched colors—stripes and patches and a scarf too long for the season. He stood just off the path, arms crossed, a faint smirk on his face.

I ignored him. Focused on the task. I didn’t like doing magic for money, but it had paid for my mother’s new loom, her spinning wheel. She said she was even saving for a dowry for me.

Which was foolish. I didn’t want any of the village girls. And none of them wanted me.

I turned to the sky, called up the words.

“Veltharun dosh’el kai’mir.”

Clouds gathered, slow and steady. Rain began to fall.

“You call that an incantation?” the man shouted. “I’ve seen novices do better! Your master should be ashamed! What are they teaching you?”

I turned, stunned. “What do you mean? That’s how the words are said... isn’t it?”

He rolled his eyes. Then he said the same words—but his tone, his rhythm, his confidence—it was like hearing them for the first time. The clouds thickened. The rain poured harder.

“It’s not just what you say,” he told me. “It’s how you say it. Give the words the respect they deserve, and they’ll give more back.”

I was soaked, heart pounding. I ran to him. Dropped to my knees in the mud.

“Please—teach me.”

He looked taken aback. “What? No, no. I’m not stealing a student from another hedge mage. That’s bad form.”

“I don’t have a teacher,” I said quickly. “Not really. The words... they come to me in dreams. Whispers. They tell me how to shape them, how to will them into being.”

His brows drew together. “Dreams? You’ve never trained?”

I shook my head. “The first dream came when I was five. It gave me a word for light—I used it to keep the dark away at night. After that, more words came. I tried them all. Until... there was an accident.”

“Don’t tell me—you called lightning down on the town bully?”

I winced. “No. I summoned a fireball. In a barn. To impress some kids.”

“Ah. That’ll do it. That or lightning. Usually enough to scare a young hedge into hiding.”

“There was talk of sending me to the Capital,” I said. “But nothing came of it.”

“Wouldn’t have helped,” he muttered. “You’re too wild for the guilds. They’d have sent you straight to Bramblehold. That’s where they put hedge mages like us. We don’t wear robes. We don’t recite from scrolls. But we make do. Sometimes... we make more.”

“Can you take me there?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.

He hesitated. “Maybe. I’d have to speak to your father. Make sure you’re not already tied to a trade.”

“I don’t have a father. Not anymore. He died in the war.”

He gave a slow nod. “Then your mother, at least. If she agrees, I’ll take you.”

He clapped his hands and grinned. “Now go get her. I don’t want to stand around in this rain all day.”

I ran.

Faster than I should’ve, really. My boots kicked up wet soil and half-dried hay as I sprinted toward the house. The rain hadn’t slowed—it was my rain, after all—but I barely noticed it anymore. My heart thundered. Not with fear. With want.

I burst through the door, nearly slipping on the kitchen stones.

My mother looked up from her mending, eyes narrowing. “You’d better have a good reason for barging in like that.”

“There’s a man,” I gasped, chest heaving. “Outside. He—he’s a hedge mage. A real one. He said he’d take me to Bramblehold. Train me.”

She didn’t say anything at first. Just stared. Then she set her needle down with slow care.

“Is this another one of your dreams?” she asked softly.

“No,” I said. “He’s real. He showed me—he did the same words I did, but stronger. Better. He knew them, too. He knew me.”

I’d always been a dreamer. That much she knew. But this wasn’t the wide-eyed fantasy of a child desperate to be more than a village mistake. There was something different in my voice now.

Conviction.

She rose from her chair, wiped her hands on her apron. “Where is he?”

I led her out, still half-worried the man would be gone. But he was exactly where I’d left him—arms folded, scarf still far too long, watching the clouds he’d summoned with my own words.

When he saw her, he straightened. “Anira, is it?”

“I am,” she said. “You’ve got a name?”

“Call me Corlin,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Your kid’s got potential. Raw as spring mud, but strong. I can take them to Bramblehold. Teach them how not to set fire to barns.”

She looked between us. Me, soaked and muddy and hopeful. Him, colorful and strange and clearly dangerous.

Then she gave a single nod.

“You’ll take care of them?”

“I’ll teach them how to take care of themselves,” Corlin said. “Better in the long run.”

She hesitated. Then stepped forward, placing a hand against my cheek.

“You listen to him,” she said. “And you write when you can. Even if you’ve only got time for one word.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

I left that night. Packed light. Just a satchel. A few shirts. A book of blank pages. As we left the village behind, the rain stopped.

Not because of magic.

Because the clouds, for once, didn’t need to hide anything.