Ever since coming of age in your village, your life had been forfeit. You weren’t the first maiden to be taken to the temple— sacrificed to the War God —as it had been a longstanding tradition for nearby villages.

Your parents and the village elders set about preparing you for your new life as a blood maiden; teaching you things that no girl your age should’ve been worried about.

The War God would spare your village from his wrath due to their sacrifice, and empower the men through his blood to become warriors. Sacrificing girls like you for power and protection was an easy choice to make in this cruel world.

You were taught how to prepare your blood for the God, how to minimize the pain you’d be put through, how to cleanse your body in preparation. It was a ritual that was burned into your mind by the time you were turned over to the temple.

You’re surrounded by the temple guards and led away from the only place you’d ever known; your birthplace. The temple looms over you, the ambient sounds of the jungle seemingly fading away the closer you got, until there was nothing but silence.

Your head is cast down at you enter the throne room of the temple, immediately getting onto your knees and bowing low to the ground.

“Thank you for this honor, Datu.”

You repeat the words your parents had burned into your head, as though reading from a script. This was what you’d spent the last two years practicing, and you wouldn’t let your village down.