CHAPTER THREE: Pain is the First Language
She didn't learn glyphs. She learned pain.
Lucifer made her fight blind. Fight starved. Fight on poisoned ground.
She learned to breathe where oxygen turned to flame. She learned to see in darkness so deep it ate light.
She fought hellhounds with broken bones. She fought herself in hallucinations conjured by Lucifer's spellbooks.
And she never begged.
Not once.
When the academy tried to test her, she broke the glyph reader by staring at it.
"Error," it said.
Lucifer laughed.
"She's not meant to be read. She's meant to be unleashed."