He felt it. Oh, how he felt it. The ice-cold surface on which his left cheek was firmly placed. In any other case, he would have laid on his right cheek, but seeing as it was torn up by countless gashes and slashes from the crude whip which had repeatedly been drawn over his pale, white skin, lying on the right side was hardly an option.
“Ash Tsuga, do you know why I punish you so?” asked the white-robed man, who stood towering above the young elf on the stone altar.
He was holding a leather whip between his hands, which were gnarled like the roots on an old tree. The whip was giving off a strained, stretching sound as it was twisted between the priests veiny, grey hands.
A condescending smile had overtaken the elderly priest’s lips as he watched his elven brother bleed on the otherwise beautifully engraved, white stone block, which served as the church’s altar.
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