Chomp. Chomp.
The only sound filling the dim church kitchen was Kael's barbaric chewing.
He tore into the food like a man who hadn't eaten in days—which, given the state he arrived in, might not have been far from the truth.
Grease glistened on his fingers.
A mutton leg vanished in seconds.
Steam rose from the last bowl of stew—Kael's now, apparently—and bones clattered carelessly onto the side plate like fallen soldiers.
Everyone else had either finished or slowed down.
Only Kael was still devouring with the ferocity of a beast.
Selene didn't even look up.
She'd seen this before—more than once.
Instead, she calmly sipped her water, gaze distant, as if mentally somewhere far away.
The others weren't so composed.
The two teenagers gawked, frozen mid-bite.
Even the General—half-bandaged and leaking slightly—stared in vague horror.
And Nyra?
She just sat there, expression tight, watching her carefully portioned meal disappear bite by bite into someone else's mouth.
