A land held in thrall by dark magic. A rebel in chains. In the heart of the torture dungeon, more than death awaits him, for the cruel white devil is a master of his craft.
Translated from original german text with the help of deepl.com
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Part two - corruption
Adion awoke to the arrival of another prisoner. Like a wet sack, the body was thrown into the neighboring cell and the guards vanished again. No one bothered to check on Adion, bring him food, or even empty the piss bucket. It stank of vomit and also intensely of blood from the newcomer. Adion crawled up against the cell wall and leaned weakly against the bars. Their distance from each other was too great to reach over to the neighbor, so he could only look at the miserable wretch. He could not think of any words of comfort, and even as a greeting he elicited only a dry croak from his throat.
The other did not respond and Adion wondered if perhaps he had died. He drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees. He now wished he had stopped himself from throwing up last night, for his stomach was so empty it hurt. He was hungry, tired, and horribly hopeless. During the night - or what he thought had been - he'd jolted awake several times, and for a few blessed breaths hadn't known where he was or how he'd gotten here before the memories pushed mercilessly through his foggy mind. In a kind of feverish delirium, he had convinced himself that what he had experienced was only a bad dream, figments created by fear and delusion induced by pain. However, he was overcome each time by the horrible shame and the undeniable memory of how his visit to the torture dungeon had ended. Then he forced himself to believe that his deviant sin was due to his mental state which had been shattered by imprisonment and torture, but deep in his heart he knew better, for he was familiar with the terrible depravity in his soul which he had wanted to hide from the world and also from himself for so long.
In his parental home there had been clear boundaries between good and evil, strict beliefs about what was sin and what was not. So strict, in fact, that it bordered on sheer impossibility for an adolescent to do justice to them. All the more desperately he had kept his terrible desire secret and pretended to be the good son. His father and older brother had died in the war for the Dark Mirror when Adion was still a young boy, and his mother told him that it was her punishment for marrying an elf. With this she wanted to teach him that all sins, even or probably especially the sweet ones, lead to pain and ruin. In Adion's heart, however, grew a very different, much more painful realization: in her opinion, he, a half-elf, should not exist. Now that he was cowering naked and in despair on a cell floor in the black castle, he thought that she had been right. His very existence was tainted, and Demar had revealed that truth.
The other slowly came back to life and gave a rattling sigh. Adion peered through the bars and tried to recognize his neighbor. His light hair was stiff with dirt and he held a blood-encrusted hand to his face. He wore a dirty pile of blood-soaked rags that might once have been the rebels' clothing. No one took his clothes off, Adion thought. Maybe someone else tortured him.
"You're alive," he noted. He didn't know what else to say.
