Page 1 of Wizards & Weavers (Cozy Questing #1)

Chapter

One

Braiden Beadle sat at the counter of his craft shop, one hand sifting idly through the sewing tin. It used to be for keeping cookies, but like his grandmother before him, Braiden had dutifully dumped out the leftover crumbs to repurpose it for storage.

It was a perfectly good box for holding all sorts of scraps, like stray crochet hooks or bits of unfinished knitting. If only someone would walk through the door and buy anything he’d actually finished.

Braiden sighed. Another average day at Beadle’s Needles. Not a single sale since morning.

He traced his finger absently through the air, a thin beam of light following the edge of his nail. Within moments it had solidified into a glowing length of thread. The thread fell lazily onto the counter. There it would linger until the spell ended and the magic faded away.

This was Braiden’s little joy when the shop was quiet — which was far too often, these days.

Making lengths of arcane thread was a satisfying, if impermanent act of magic.

Every piece of magicked string felt like pressure uncoiling from his soul.

Casting these tiny spells made his world seem lighter.

But hanging all around him in the craft shop hung the crushing weight of so much yarn and thread — miles upon miles of the stuff, none of it magical, all of it permanent.

As much as he loved the store and his family’s legacy, Braiden couldn’t help but feel the burden of all he’d inherited on his shoulders. At night it sat like a gargoyle on his chest, stifling his breathing. Sometimes he dreamed of a giant ball of yarn crushing him to death.

He sighed again as he cut the magic off at his fingers, severing the glowing threads. They fell into a radiant heap on the countertop. He never bothered cleaning them up, knowing they would disintegrate in time.

That was what he’d learned in the simple spell detailed on Card No. 3, just one of many in Granny Bethilda’s well-worn catalog of rituals and recipes. A small infusion of magic meant the spell would only last a short time.

Longer threads and lasting magic needed more effort, a greater expenditure of willpower.

Legends told of old masters who could craft thread that lasted forever, as fine as spider silk, as strong as steel.

These were true masters of the sorcery of spinning, the wizardry of weaving — the making of cloth and thread out of thin air.

But he wasn’t a master. He was only Braiden, the last remaining Beadle. And the last remaining Beadle really needed to get some work done.

He examined the contents of the sewing tin, his hand settling on the stuffed fabric tomato sitting amid the spools of thread, the balls of yarn. With a sudden sting he realized that he and the pincushion had plenty in common. They were both stuck in a box filled with unwanted odds and ends.

“It’s just you and me, little tomato,” he said.

Sometimes he imagined himself standing outside the shop, casting glowing yards of string into the street, like streamers and ribbons at a parade. Wouldn’t that be fun?

It might even attract a few new customers, intrigue them with the weaving magic and lure them into the shop. He could use his spells to advertise and drum up some business. Gods, but for the chance to use his magic for anything but making temporary practice yarn and idle doodling.

“They’d think I was loopy,” he said, even as he drew more swirls and curlicues in the air. It was perfectly nice and cozy to daydream about ancient thread masters and ribbons in the streets, but Beadle’s Needles was in serious trouble.

And people didn’t go much for crafting anymore, anyway. So much for sewing, and knitting, and crocheting. He tucked the tomato gently back into its nest of yarn and picked up an abandoned square of knitting with a sigh.

It was all about weapons and magic and armor these days. Weathervale had turned into a haven for adventurers and dungeoneers, people who had no use for craft supplies and the fiber arts.

At this rate he’d have to close up shop and shut the family business down forever. Gods, and what would Granny Bethilda have thought of that? She’d claw her way out of the grave just to tell him off.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Braiden muttered, arguing with himself. Granny Bethilda was never the vindictive kind. That only stung all the more. She’d be disappointed — heartbroken, even. That was worse. Braiden never thought he’d consider a vengeful haunting a more attractive option.

The little bell above the door tinkled, a salty afternoon breeze blowing into the shop. Hanging skeins of yarn and decorative macrame drifted with the gentle puff of wind, rustling and alive for an interesting moment, then falling still again.

Braiden stiffened his hands and paused his craft work, swearing to remember his place in this particular pattern, already knowing he would forget. No visitors at all on this slowest of days, but at last, a potential customer.

A great, towering man in a full suit of heavy plate stood at the threshold, his armor every bit as black as his shadow. On the wood floor, his silhouette seemed almost demonic, his massive helmet ending in twin horns, the sword at his hip like his shadow’s tail.

He stepped through the doorway. The floorboards squeaked. The shelves shuddered. One of his horns brushed against the bell. It tinkled again.

“Oh,” his tinny voice said from inside the helmet. “Sorry about that.”

Braiden dropped his needles and his tangle of yarn on the counter. Finally, here was something interesting.

“It’s no bother at all. Welcome. How can I help you?”

“Are you the one called Beadle?” his voice boomed from within the cold metal cage of his helmet. “Braiden Beadle?”

Braiden sat up, the slouch in his shoulders and the bend in his back banished.

This was it, at last, Braiden’s shot at something more exciting than keeping his grandmother’s shop forever.

He must have looked like an overeager puppy, staring at the armored man with eyes as big as saucers, with his mouth hanging open.

Why a warrior was strutting around town not only fully armored, but fully helmeted as well was something Braiden didn’t think to question.

Weathervale had seen a steady swell of visitors from all across Aidun since the dungeon appeared outside town.

Adventurers and armor were now too common a sight to cause any real concern. It felt impolite to ask.

Besides, the warrior looked incredibly imposing wearing all his armor. There was something so dangerous and alluring about the adventurer’s life, these people who plumbed deadly dungeons in search of wealth, glory, ancient artifacts.

What if this was Braiden’s call to adventure, this mysterious faceless warrior who somehow knew his name? The rickety sign above the shop was named for Braiden’s family, of course, but for the warrior to know who he was? This was it. This was the day.

“Yes. I’m Braiden. Friends call me Braid.” Not that Braiden had many of those, but the mysterious horned man didn’t need to know that. “Sorry, I’m rambling. How did you know my name?”

Bits of armor squeaked as the man held up a sheet of parchment. “This was stuck to the window outside. It appears to be some sort of bill. I thought you might want to take a look.”

Sometimes Braiden took his lunches out on the Weathervale docks, watching the ships as they went by. When the wind was high, the sails billowed full and fat, like great big sacks of air, the bellies of wealthy, well-fed merchant men.

For the first time in his life, Braiden truly understood how it felt to have the wind taken out of his sails.

“Oh,” Braiden said, completely failing to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “Here. Thank you for bringing that in for me.”

He kept his eyes away from the parchment, already knowing from the shape of the wax seal where it had come from. Weathervale town council wanted to collect on rent, and soon, too.

But Braiden couldn’t look the warrior in the eye, either, too embarrassed to engage. Hidden under his great helmet, he couldn’t really tell where the warrior’s eyes were, anyway. Braiden flung his hand out at the merchandise instead.

“Don’t suppose I could interest you in some craft supplies? It’s a fine thing, starting a new hobby. Soothes the mind and soul. Something to do between hacking at monsters and, er, whatever it is that fine warriors like yourself get up to these days.”

Braiden held his strained grin, gesturing at the rows of yarn and thread. Tools to indulge in so many of the textile crafts — crochet hooks, knitting needles, sewing needles — but he could clearly sense the warrior’s disinterest. Braiden never was very good at closing the sale.

The warrior pinched a handful of something soft, as if testing its squishiness. There was something so comical about the sight of a heavily armored warrior playing with colorful skeins of yarn, and yet Braiden was in no mood to laugh.

“Oh, I’m good. Not much for crafting myself. Unless it’s the craft of war. Warcraft, I suppose you’d say. Hah.”

“Yes, of course,” Braiden said, visions of adventure and dark dungeons fading as he remembered who and where he was. “Thank you for bringing my bill in for me.”

The warrior’s gauntlet clanked against his helmet as he gave Braiden a metallic, faceless salute. “Only doing my duty. It’s a fine town, Weathervale, and I like to help where I can. Have a nice day, citizen.”

And the bell over the door jingled as the anonymous warrior went on his way.

How odd. “Citizen,” he’d called Braiden.

He’d meant it kindly, but somehow it only made Braiden feel like just another stitch in the tapestry, and a boring one at that.

A bit of beige thread in the background, or the faded blue of a ho-hum sky, out on the edges, closer to the corners.