They walked for what felt like days across the dunes that had once been ocean. The sands were slick with the memory of water, glinting like broken mirrors beneath the twin suns. Liora kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, where the air shimmered with something more than heat.
"The Circle of Echoes," she murmured. The name felt strange on her tongue, heavy with a resonance that didn't belong to her voice.
Corren trudged beside her, his boots sinking slightly with every step. "What's its purpose?"
"Every Circle reflects a part of creation," Liora said quietly. "The Breath, the Depths, the Flame, the Frost. The Echo… it holds memory, but not just of events. Of intent. It remembers why things happened."
Corren frowned. "So it remembers us."
"Perhaps," she said. "Or what we once were."
The wind began to hum. It wasn't a natural sound—it rose and fell in distinct tones, forming patterns like a melody too vast to follow. Liora stopped walking. The sand around her vibrated faintly, and then, before either of them could react, the dunes shifted.
The ground fell away.
They tumbled downward through a spiraling pit of golden dust that sang as it moved. The air thickened, turning translucent, as if sound itself had become a visible mist.
When they landed, it was not on sand but on solid stone.
They stood in a massive chamber carved from glass and salt. The walls curved upward, forming a dome that glowed faintly from within. Every sound they made—every breath, every heartbeat—echoed back to them in perfect clarity, layered and delayed, as though the room itself were alive.
Liora's voice came out as a whisper. "We're inside the Echo."
Corren's hand went to his sword hilt, instinctively. "I don't like this. Feels like it's listening."
"It is," she said. "Everything here listens. The stones, the air, the light. They record what was said, what was meant."
As if to prove her words, their echoes didn't fade as normal sounds did. Instead, they lingered—Liora's whisper still circling the chamber, repeating softer and softer, "We're inside the Echo… inside the Echo…" until it became indistinguishable from the wind.
Then another voice joined the chorus.
"Inside the Echo, the truth returns."
The chamber darkened.
From the edges of the room, shapes began to emerge—figures made of light and shadow, forming and dissolving with each resonance. They were not solid, but they were familiar.
Corren drew his blade, eyes narrowing. "Those faces—"
Liora's heart twisted. She saw her own reflection among them—her face, her voice—but not as she was. Older, colder, eyes burning with authority.
The echo of herself spoke first. "You can bind the world again, but you cannot silence what you once said."
Liora's voice shook. "I don't remember saying anything."
"Memory is not truth," the echo replied. "Intent is. And your intent remains."
The chamber pulsed with light. Each beat brought new figures into being—people Liora had known, or thought she had known. The drowned from the Depths. The villagers who had fled. Even Branek, his face twisted in accusation.
"You made us," one said.
"You abandoned us," another whispered.
"You bound the world and called it mercy."
Corren stepped forward, his sword flashing in the dimness. "Enough! She's not the one you're accusing."
But his voice, too, split and multiplied. A thousand Correns stood behind him, each repeating his words with slight distortions: Enough. She's not the one. She's the one. She's enough.
He froze, horrified.
Liora took a step toward him, her own echo mirroring her perfectly. The copies moved when she moved, breathed when she breathed.
"This Circle doesn't lie," she said. "It shows what we've hidden in our hearts."
Corren turned to her, eyes wide. "Then what's it showing you?"
She didn't answer.
Because behind her reflection, another shape was forming—a silhouette that wasn't human. It had her posture, her proportions, but its body rippled like smoke, its eyes gleaming gold. When it opened its mouth, the sound that came out wasn't words but a low, resonant growl that filled the entire chamber.
The Beast.
It stood behind her reflection, bound to it like a shadow. And when she turned to face it, it spoke—not aloud, but directly in her mind.
"Do you hear now what you've always known? We were never separate."
The ground shook. The walls of the chamber began to fracture, sound spilling through the cracks like liquid light.
Corren stumbled backward as his own echoes multiplied again—each one whispering different things: You should have stopped her. You should have left her. You love her.
He clutched his head. "Make it stop!"
Liora tried to focus, but the cacophony was overwhelming. The air was thick with words—truths, half-truths, and lies, all tangled together. The Circle of Echoes wasn't just a test. It was a reckoning.
She took a deep breath. "Silence," she said softly.
The room ignored her.
She raised her voice. "Silence!"
The echoes screamed in response.
Then, faintly, a single voice cut through the chaos—a melody she recognized. It was her mother's voice, from long ago, singing the lullaby of the Old Circle.
Liora's throat tightened. She closed her eyes and began to hum along.
The chamber trembled, not in resistance but in recognition. One by one, the echoes fell silent, drawn into the rhythm of her song. The figures dissolved, their light bleeding into the walls. Even the Beast faded, its growl softening into a purr that reverberated through her bones.
When she finished, only stillness remained.
The chamber was whole again. The runes along the walls glowed brighter, and at the center of the floor, where the light converged, a symbol appeared: a spiral of interwoven lines, like sound waves frozen in stone.
Liora stepped toward it. "This is the heart of the Echo."
Corren lowered his sword, still breathing heavily. "What do you do with it?"
"Listen."
She knelt and placed her palms upon the spiral. The stone pulsed beneath her hands, releasing a low hum that resonated through her entire body. Images filled her mind—not memories this time, but pure intent. The thoughts of those who had built the Circles.
She saw them: tall, radiant beings who had shaped the world with word and will. They had bound the elements into order, believing themselves gods. But their harmony had been fragile, their intentions divided.
And she had been one of them.
Not their leader, but their voice. The one who spoke their collective will into being.
Her whisper had shaped the mountains. Her breath had carried the storms. And when discord arose—when one among them sought dominion—her words had been twisted, binding instead of freeing.
The Beast had been her punishment. Her counterpart. Her reminder of what happens when creation forgets compassion.
She opened her eyes. "I see it now," she whispered. "The Circles weren't prisons. They were apologies."
Corren stepped closer. "Apologies?"
"For the mistakes we made when we thought we were above consequence." She rose, her gaze distant. "Each Circle binds a part of creation to responsibility. To memory. The Echo is their conscience."
The symbol at her feet flared suddenly, and from it rose a sphere of light that hovered before her chest. Inside it, a faint heartbeat pulsed.
"The next fragment," she said, voice trembling. "The Circle accepts me."
The sphere dissolved into her chest, joining the others. For a heartbeat, the chamber seemed to breathe with her. Then, silence.
Corren approached cautiously. "You all right?"
She nodded, though her expression was faraway. "Each Circle changes me. I can feel them—Breath, Depths, Echo—they're all connecting. And something's watching through them."
He frowned. "The Beast?"
She shook her head. "Older than that. Something that remembers when I first spoke the world awake."
The sound of wind returned, faint but clear, and this time it didn't echo. It answered.
A whisper brushed against her ear. "Three Circles bound. Four remain. The Unformed stirs."
Liora shivered.
They turned toward the passage that opened in the far wall, light spilling through. As they stepped forward, the chamber began to collapse behind them, the glass walls shattering into a chorus of fading tones.
By the time they emerged back into the desert, the dunes were silent once more.
Night had fallen. The stars above seemed too close, their light sharp and alive. The constellations had shifted again—forming the shape of a spiral, echoing the pattern on the chamber floor.
Corren looked up. "The sky's changing every time you complete a Circle."
"It's aligning," she said softly. "When all seven are bound, the world will remember what it was before."
He hesitated. "And if it remembers something terrible?"
She met his gaze. "Then I'll make sure it forgets again."
They stood there in silence, the wind whispering across the sand. Far in the distance, a faint light flickered—like a torch carried by unseen hands.
"The next Circle waits," she said. "The Circle of Shadows."
Corren grimaced. "Let me guess. That one doesn't echo—it watches."
Liora didn't answer. Her eyes were on the horizon, where the stars seemed to bend, forming a doorway of darkness.
Whatever awaited them beyond that, she could already feel it calling her name.
And in the depths of her mind, the Beast stirred again—no longer as a monster, but as something closer.
A twin.
A mirror.
A voice that whispered, "The Echo is only the beginning."