Pain stopped being pain after the second hour.
It became architecture.
The kind of structure your body started organizing itself around when nothing else made sense. Bones were now furniture for agony to drape itself over. Nerves sang like pulled harp strings. Skin? Mostly decorative.
Lindarion lay curled against the far wall of the cell.
Not because he chose to.
Because there was nowhere left to go.
His breathing came in uneven pulls. Shallow. Controlled. The kind that rationed oxygen because anything deeper would mean moving something he hadn't catalogued yet.
His thoughts felt distant.
Not slow.
Just… filed.
He'd learned early that pain wanted to be loud. It wanted center stage. But if you made it wait its turn—if you made it share the room with your thoughts—it lost its teeth.
Barely.
The air still smelled like iron and burnt mana. His own, probably. His fingers twitched reflexively, the phantom memory of restraint still wrapped around them.
No chains.
No ropes.
