Justin still remembered the Guardians' funerary rites from a time when he had witnessed them performed by Zechariah, in a stone tunnel at the base of the Shifting Mountains. Now, he witnessed them again-for the same man. It was the dead of night, and here, on the beach of a small island many miles from Esthean, the forty-three surviving members of the Ru'Onorath, including Cyaxares, Kallorn, Ezon, and Justin, paid tribute to their fallen brother.

The canoe sat on the edge of the ...