I turned the pages carefully, afraid that pressing too hard would turn history into dust.
The title sat alone on the first page.
The Rites of Burial and Becoming.
Below it, the first line.
To become something powerful, you must first be buried. And if done correctly, you will rise as something unrecognizable.
I read it twice and let the words settle into the space behind my ribs where fear lived. Where the knowledge that I was about to kill my father sat beside the knowledge that doing it would change the shape of me forever.
I turned the pages and found faded watercolor illustrations. A warrior kneeling in dirt. A woman beside him. Moonlight overhead. Flowers surrounding them in rings of red and white.
I kept reading.
We were not chosen for purity. We were chosen for endurance.
And the spirits did not ask if we were good men. They only asked if we could carry what they placed inside us.
More illustrations showed hunters moving through darkness with masks on their faces, animal-shaped shadows above them, and blades drawn.
The demons they pursued were rendered in red ink. And sometimes their bodies were contorted in agony and their mouths opened in screams.
To hunt demons, we wore their faces.
For some reason. . .that sat within my chest, and my mother’s presence rose within the room the way perfume filled a space.
I was finding her, reconnecting with her bloodline, and hoping to God that this could protect my men and me in the next battle.
I turned the page and saw a large sentence painted over several illustrations.
Once the Burial Ritual is complete, the hunter controls the beast.
I leaned my head to the side.
Controls the beast?
My pulse picked up.
I took in the first illustration and shivered.
A massive circular hole had been dug into the earth. Inside it, a warrior lay with a woman. They were naked and their bodies were intertwined together in the slow curve of lovemaking. Her hair spread beneath them in dark waves. His hand cradled the back of her skull.
Lotus blossoms covered them.
And above them, a massive shadowed spider watched.
The artist had rendered it in faded gray ink. Its mouth was open and its eyes were on the lovers.
I looked at the illustration on the other page.
The hunter was now in full battle with a mask over his face and his blade raised in mid-strike against an enemy twice his size.
And his shadowed spider had its fangs in the enemy’s throat. It looked to be weakening the man.
I widened my eyes and looked at the sentence again.
Once the Burial Ritual is complete, the hunter controls the beast.
