Flashback: Prior to Her Majesty's death Part 48

Pain was a constant companion.

Li Jun had long since lost count of how many times they had beaten him, burned him, or sent their mages into his mind in an attempt to break him. His arms hung limply at his sides, heavy with the weight of the aura depletion restraints digging into his wrists. Every breath was laborious, his ribs protesting the mere act of existing. His body was healing, as it always did, but at a painfully slow pace, sapped by the magic suppressing his aura.

Three weeks.

Three weeks of captivity, of silence, of unrelenting agony. Three weeks of torture, of failed escape attempts, of biding his time and learning his captors' patterns. He had counted at least seven different guards stationed outside his cell throughout the day, their shifts regular but not without gaps.