Athir ignored her mother's calls and ran as fast as she could, her bare feet kicking up dust and sand. The red walls of the ravines reared high above her, blocking out the heat of the day, and she darted through the shadows they cast like a ghost.

Her father and her brothers were walking back to the village with the other hunters, and she hid in the red rocks above them as they passed. They held a long pole on their shoulders with a giant sand spider strapped to it, its legs curled inward.

Her father glanced up and smiled to himself. No matter how careful she was, she could never hide from him. If she had copper skin and dark hair like the rest of her family, she knew she could be almost invisible, but her blond hair and pale skin caught the sun too easily.

She continued on until the twists and turns in the rocky canyon ended abruptly and a vast desert stretched out to the horizon. Dunes rolled endlessly, and great sheets of sand were tossed up by the wind, twisting and wheeling in the air like birds in flight.

Athir cocked her head and listened to the song of the desert that her people knew, and then she heard another song that called only to her. The hidden song flowed out of a shimmering window in the air, which led to a red land under a red sky.

Unlike her home, the clouds raced overhead, blown by a wind she couldn’t feel, but much was the same here. The sand under her feet and in-between her toes was the same, but cold without a sun in the sky to warm it. The canyon was still solid, familiar rock behind her, and the endless desert lay before her.

The underlying tension in the landscape made her shiver slightly. It wasn’t cold here, but the temperature never changed. Nothing changed here, but things moved. She could see why they called it the echo; the world repeated itself from moment to moment but seemed to get weaker each time.

Athir didn’t have to wait long for two figures to crest the dunes, and she ran to the tallest of them.

"Myam," she called.

At one time, she would have rushed to embrace him. But she was older now, and instead she stepped back and gave a small bow, which he returned.

Myam was far older than the elders in her village. He was tall, with long legs and thin arms that swayed like the branches of a tree in the breeze as he walked. His large, pointed ears were crowned with tufts of white hair. His clothes were finely made but heavily worn, and Athir always thought he looked like a king that had fallen on hard times.

"Athir, this is Yroh; he’s going to be helping us today."

The boy was one of the youngest of the creatures she had met here. He was taller than her by a head and had a proud, almost regal bearing. His clothes were fine but worn like Myam's, and at his hip were two beautifully crafted swords, one long and one short.

Athir bowed to the boy, and he bent slightly at the waist.

"Are we going to train together?" Athir asked.

"If that is what you wish, Champion," Myam replied with a warm smile that gave comfort even in this place.

The trio returned to a large clearing in the canyon. In Athir’s world, the tents of her village were set up in a neat circle, the giant spider would have been set down, and her mother and sisters would be preparing food, but in this world, none of that existed and all around was silent.

Yroh and Athir began training under the Myam's watchful eye, and then he instructed them to fight against each other. First hand-to-hand and then with long wooden swords.

Yroh was skilled, strong, and cunning. Many times he bested her, but she was a quick learner, and when she used his own tricks against him, they both crowed with laughter.

"Yroh will show you a new skill, Athir," Myam explained, giving the proud boy a nod.

Yroh let his sword drop to the floor, keeping his eyes on Athir.

"Attack him," Myam instructed.

"But he’s unarmed," Athir protested.

"You will not hurt him."

Athir hesitated and then took a step forward and swung the sword in a lazy arc that would hit Yroh on the arm just below his shoulder.

Looking into Athir’s eyes, Yroh spoke a word, and the command settled into her mind like a mighty boulder blocking a river. The muscles in her body seized completely, leaving only her eyeballs free to rove around in panic.

Yroh smiled until Myam snapped at him, and his face returned to its proud glare.

"This is a command, Athir," Myam explained. "Yroh has extended his will upon you, also adding a little of the magic that he is able to access here."

Athir felt her anger and frustration spike, and she pushed back, imagining that she was forcing a grinning version of Yroh out of her mind. Her sword arm shook, and she moved forward at a glacial pace.

Myam spoke to Yroh, and the boy's eyebrows raised as he took a neat step back.

Athir roared as she broke free, and the sword finished its arc, missing Yroh’s face by inches.

Athir was gulping air, her hands on her knees. "Teach me how to do that," she gasped.

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Their training lasted for hours, but Athir didn’t feel the passage of time. With the sword in her hand, she felt nothing but the pure elation and unbridled pleasure of combat.

As the red sky above became darker and whatever counted for night in this place descended, Athir extended her will for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Stop."

Yroh was a statue, his face fixed in a grimace and his sword extended.

"Well done, champion," Myam said.

"Kneel."

Yroh dropped to his knees before her.

"Athir, I don’t think—" Myam began.

"Sing."

Yroh crooned a song in a language that Athir could not understand, and the corners of Myam’s mouth twitched before he spoke, and the spell was broken. Yroh staggered to his feet, letting off a stream of words that Athir assumed were curses in his own tongue.

"You should show more respect to Yroh, Athir; he has agreed to help you," Myam said.

Athir’s eyes flickered to Myam, and she licked her lips. She knew he was powerful, but she had picked up the command in one session, and she could tell he had been impressed. Myam seemed to read her intentions and shook his head.

"Athir, I would not advise—"

"Stop!" Athir commanded.

"No," Myam whispered.

The force of his will battered her. She felt like she had run into a solid wall, but that wall had also been moving towards her at the same time. Whereas Yroh had shut down her movements, Myam had shut down her whole consciousness, leaving Athir with only a scrap of awareness in a colorless void. She couldn’t even find anything to fight against.

"I was trying to warn you against that," Myam said.

Athir was lying on the ground, staring up at the red sky. Her brain felt like it had been taken out and shaken before being put back in upside down. Yroh hugged his stomach and howled with laughter nearby.

Athir struggled to her feet and was relieved to see Myam wasn’t angry at her; if anything, his expression seemed amused.

"I think that’s enough for today," Myam said.

Athir gave her sword back to Myam, and to her surprise, Yroh unclasped his sword belt, complete with the two fine metal blades, and held them out to her.

"You can take them," Myam said in response to her confused expression.

"These are mine?"

The blades were thin and light, and a small owl had been carved onto each one on the metal of the blade where it met the hilt.

"You’ll need them," Myam replied, and Athir caught a note of sadness in the song around them that she had never heard before. The desert felt cold again, and she shivered.

"Yroh has to go now," Myam said.

"I hope I’ll see you again," Athir said, and the boy looked to Myam, who translated her words.

Yroh bowed and made his way back through the canyon alone.

"Athir, the Lady would like to ask you something. If you have time," Myam said.

Athir’s heart leaped. "She wants to see me?"

She had only met the Lady twice before, and Athir thought she was the most beautiful and magical creature she had ever seen.

"Yes, she wants to see you; you are often in her thoughts. Wait here for her."

Athir sensed the sadness both in his voice and in the song, and then he was gone. Athir waited alone in a place that was at once so familiar that she knew every stone, but at the same time utterly alien.

"Welcome to the Echo, girl, what is your name?"

The queen had appeared behind her in the center of the clearing and sat cross-legged on the floor; her shimmering gray dress was many layered and billowed out around her. Myam called her the Lady, but Athir thought of her as a queen because she wore a crown of silver-blue.

"It’s me, Athir; don’t you remember me?"

The queen's mouth was slightly open, and she gazed at Athir and then at the canyon that surrounded them as if she had never seen it before. "This part hasn’t happened yet, has it?" she whispered.

Athir caught a shrill note of panic in the song as it echoed around them.

"You met me before a long time ago; you told me I could come here and play."

"I did? .. Yes I did," the queen said, her eyebrows furrowed. "If that has happened already, then what is next?… You must meet Myam."

Athir approached the queen and sat in front of her, resting her new swords on her lap. "I also met Myam a long time ago. He made me your champion. You don’t remember?"

The queen rested her gaze on Athir, and the soft creases of worry in her forehead faded away. "Of course I remember. You have grown wonderfully tall and strong. You wanted to be a great warrior. How are your lessons?"

"I love them; today I met Yroh, and he gave me these," Athir said, indicating the long and short swords in their beautiful sheaths. "Aren't they beautiful?"

"The sword," the queen said. "There was something about the sword. Why can’t I remember?"

The look of confusion on the face of the queen reminded Athir of one of the village elders when she had become lost in the maze of the canyons. The whole village had searched, and Athir had found her late that night, huddled in a small crevice, lost and alone.

"I gave him the sword, but that must have been a long time ago, so long ago. How can it feel like yesterday?"

"It’s okay; perhaps you just forgot," Athir said, trying to give a reassuring smile. She looked around for Myam; he needed to know that the Lady was not well.

"So long ago. Athir, you have been gone for so long. You ran away, so full of anger, and I called for you again and again, and I thought you would never come back. I knew it would happen, but it still hurt. I cried and cried."

"I haven’t gone anywhere. I’ve been here the whole time, right here in the village."

The queen's head snapped up, and her piercing gaze locked onto Athir. Her eyes were completely black.

"What’s wrong?" Athir stammered, held in place by the terrible intensity of her stare.

"We’re still at the beginning; this is when he knows where you are," the queen whispered in a hollow voice.

"Who knows?" Athir asked, the song around her trembling as much as her own voice.

"The Father."

Athir relaxed slightly. "He always knows where I am; he’s the best hunter in the village, and I can never hide from him, but he doesn’t know where this place is. You don’t have to be scared of him either; he’s kind."

But her words did nothing to change the fervor of the queen's expression or the tremor in the song around them. The queen leaned forward and seized Athir’s hands; her fingers were long and fine and gripped tightly.

"You have to stay here in the Echo. Stay here and don’t go back."

"I can’t stay here; I have to go home. What about my mother and father, and my sisters?"

A tear sprang into the queen's eye, and her lips trembled. "Your father. I’ll always remember him. Fix your swords on your belt."

Athir pulled her hands away from the queen and scrambled to her feet, fumbling to fix her new sword belt to her waist and secure the blades. The queen remained on the sandy floor, staring forlornly at her hands in her lap.

"Do not blame me, although I know you will," she said softly, then vanished.

The air shimmered in front of Athir, and a window appeared; through the opening, she saw her whole world burning. The delicate fabric of her mother and father's tent was being consumed by fire, and her mother lay nearby unmoving, the flames reflecting in her unseeing eyes.

Athir stumbled through the camp numbly, staring around at the faces she knew so well and calling to them, knowing there would be no reply.

She heard a noise through the smoke and swiftly drew both of her swords, peering up to the canyon walls for the first sign of long, hairy spider legs, but it wasn’t a spider that appeared through the softly turning smoke.

It was a young boy who wore the face of a man, with tears running down his face.

The boy saw her and wiped his nose with his sleeve.

"Stop." Athir commanded, and the boy froze.

She turned and ran, driven away by the horror of what she saw. The walls of the canyon were a blur, and in her terror, she reached out instinctively, grasping wildly. The air under her fingers became solid, and she wrenched it downward, ripping a hole into the red land of the Faelen and tumbling through.