BELOVED DEPARTED
“Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”
– Chief Aupumut, Mohican, 1725
Jarrod and Daorah, in warrior blacks, capes, and accoutrements of station, stood in the snowy courtyard at Gateskeep Palace with several hundred knights and onlookers before a ten-foot tall, carved-stone reproduction of Celeste next to a full-sized statue of a pegasus on its hind legs charging into flight.
A genius artisan, likely with magical help, had captured the greatsword in smooth gray rock, right down to the wrap on the handle and the dings on the blade. It erupted from a three-foot-square block of silver granite chiseled with Carter’s name and achievements.
Jarrod couldn’t read the entire inscription, but he recognized the diving-falcon crest below it, a sky-warrior’s pin f
