The room was vast and dimly lit, illuminated by flickering candles that cast dancing shadows on the stone walls.
Incense burned in ornate braziers, its cloying scent doing little to mask the metallic tang of blood.
And then there was the chanting of the cloaked figures kneeling at the entrance of the room, a low, guttural drone that vibrated through the floor and into Matilda's bones.
In the centre of the room, a woman was bound to a wooden post, her body contorted in agony.
A figure stood before her, clad in a black cassock, his arm rising and falling with brutal precision.
With each swing, a leather whip cracked against the woman’s bare back, tearing strips of flesh from her skin.
Blood streamed down her body, pooling at her feet.
Her screams were raw and primal, a symphony o
