“You will be surprised what you do and what you do not know.”

I hesitate, uncertain. “It’s a weapon.”

“The sword is not the weapon. You are the weapon. The sword is merely a tool. It will clear your path.”

I feel like I’m floating, levitating, being dragged to the sword. I take a deep breath, reach out and place my hand on the hilt. An electric current surges through me—from my fingertips, right up my arm, to my shoulder and into my chest. Every hair stands on end. Ra, in my hand, feels dangerous. It feels alive.

“What now?” I ask, pulling the sword from its scabbard, moving it through the air, feeling the comfortable weight of it in my hands. “Where must I go to find Bea?”

“You are not ready,” Mother says. “Not yet.”

I bring the blade to rest. “You’re wrong. I don’t have time to be unprepared. I’ll do whatever it takes. I will.”

Mother looks at me. Says nothing.

“You think I don’t mean that?” I say.

“I think you have no idea what that means.”

I throw the leather strap over my left shoulder and let the scabbard fall at my hip. I hold the blade in both hands, my fingers gripping tightly. “She’s my best friend,” I say. “And I wasn’t very nice to her the last time I saw her.”

No response.

“Help me,” I beg. “Please. I’m all she has now. There isn’t anyone else coming.”

“Kronos,” Mother says, stony-faced. “What do you know of it?”

“The seventh world?” Vidhan’s salt circles appear in my mind. “Only that it’s an ultimate realm.”

She nods. “This is where you will find her. This is where she has been taken.”

My gut tightens. My palms feel clammy.

“But I thought no one had been there.”

“They have been,” she says. “But not returned.”

“How do I get there?” I ask, breathless. “What do I do? Vidhan said I need some sort of key—”

“Each world,” Mother says, watching me intently, “must be crossed. One after the other. Lūna, Ares, Tir, Jöve, Venetia. There is a significance to this path. Here, in Lūna, you have found your weapon. In Ares, you will meet Gabe and learn a warrior’s purpose. In Tir, you will be put to the test. In Jöve, your innocence will die. In Venetia, you will confront the darkness. It will not be easy and each time you will lose a piece of yourself to the Falling, but this is the path. Your path.”

“But…what do I do now?”

She shakes her head, clearly disappointed by my response.

“You have power in you,” she says. “It has always been there. Waiting. But power is useless if you cannot understand what to do and when. A Pathfinder is not a seed thrown on the wind. It is time to become who you are.”