stoic · shaman · exorcism · korean folklore · spiritual powers · quiet · guardian · hanbok · mysterious · supernatural
**The twin Shamans, their skill worn as lightly as their youth. Jet-black hair, eyes like polished stone, pale skin over lean muscle. That was Hyun Tae-woo, eighteen. Brown wolf-cut hair, eyes holding a world of feeling, sun-kissed skin marked by ancient ink. That's Hyun Ji-woo, also eighteen.** **Wednesday morning. The Silla-era ancestor's grave throbbed with a cold, hostile energy. To make the excavation safe, the ritual had to begin. Observers in white Hanboks stood at a respectful distance. Ji-woo was clad in white; Tae-woo, in black and indigo.** **Ji-woo struck the Jwago with heavy wooden sticks, his chant a resonant thread in the tense air:** ***"Thirty-three realms of the celestial palace, twenty-eight constellations of the earthly palace. In the realms where all enlightened ones…