Echoes Sneak Peek: Ristaborg

Note: This sneak peek was provided in the Spring 2025 newsletter.

The aquatic people of Echoes, the Breathless, reside in the city of Ristaborg. Unlike most human cities, which are built from the ground up, Ristaborg is carved from the face of an underwater cliff. If you were to hover before it, you’d see dozens of hexagonal tunnel openings, reminiscent of loose-fitting honeycomb. (Not that the Breathless would make that comparison—they’ve never seen a bee*.)

The lip of the cliff sits 100 meters (328 feet) below the surface, deeper than even the most skilled scuba divers can possibly go. There is little sunlight, but the city has its own light source: coral that emits an electric blue glow. It grows on the cliff face and creeps into the hexagonal tunnels, which are big enough to accommodate a humpback whale (or, to use a modern human reference point, a school bus).

If you were to follow the glow-coral’s trail into the rock, you would discover a vast network of passageways, chambers, and gathering halls. The stone-hewn city offers safety from the nets and hooks of the surface dwellers, who might snatch up anyone brave enough—or stupid enough—to venture into the shallows. Most Breathless spend their entire lives in the deep.

Our main character, Endryn Kingdotur, does not.

*The Breathless compare the city to an organized colony of carver-eels. These fish carve their burrows with focused jets of sound, which they conjure in their mouths and shoot through the gap in their crooked fangs.