Bruce took the food and bit into it.
His eyes closed without him deciding to close them.
The taste was, there were not words for it. It was the carriage food, again, but more. Deeper. Cleaner. The meat had the savory weight of an animal that had been living its whole life eating glowing leaves in this glowing forest, and that whole life was in the bite, packed in tight, generous and uncomplicated. The texture was tender. The juice, there was juice, somehow, in soul-meat, ran clean and slightly sweet. The faint bark-sweetness Kael had caramelized was on the outside of the slab like a thin crust, and it was the best part.
Bruce did not say anything for a long moment. He just chewed.
He swallowed.
