Echoes Sneak Peek: Sound-Weaving

Note: This sneak peek was provided in the Winter 2024 newsletter.

The Breathless—the mermaid-like, aquatic people featured in Echoes—rely on magic called sound-weaving.

Sound-weavers have a connection to the undercurrent of magical energy in their world. Similar to how they harvest sea-silk threads and weave them into fabric, sound-weavers tap into magical energy, draw from it, and weave it into vibrations of varying types. (Note: Sound-weaver is the general term for those who have magic; the examples below are all types of sound-weaving.)

Stone-weavers emit ultrasonic waves from their fingertips that can cut through solid objects (such as stone). Mood-weavers influence the emotions of animals—including other Breathless—with magic in their voices. Well-weavers use their hands to detect and eliminate impurities within one’s body.

There are a handful of other types, but for the sake of brevity—and mystery—we’re going to focus on our main character’s magic. Endryn has a rare type of sound-weaving called echo-weaving. In simple terms, she can hear the sounds of the past within a given space.

In this passage, Endryn is contemplating her magic, which she has not used in quite a while.  

This month marked ten years since she last dared to echo-weave. The past had not gone anywhere in her absence. It was eternal. Never-ending. A collection of moments that accumulated, layer upon layer, whether she was there to listen or not.

She thought of the echoes as living things drifting through the dark, waiting to be witnessed by someone. Someone who could attest to their existence, if only for a moment. Together, the echoes of a space—spaces like this stretch of tunnel, her secret grotto, the Woodland Hall—made up the memory of the space itself. A memory that, as the sole living echo-weaver, only she could bear witness to.

Echo-weaving, in her mind, came with a sense of responsibility. One she had taken to ignoring.