Chapter 21 · Tastes Like Human

"Don't you fucking fall apart on me!" Lyra's hand clamped around my wrist and yanked me out of the light.

My wrist wasn't a wrist anymore. It was flaking. Smoking. Coming off in black ash where that priest's flare hit me.

"I'm fine," I snapped, but my voice glitched. Like static. Like a bad speaker. "Just — just burns."

"That's not 'just burns,' you idiot!" She shoved me against the pit wall, her palm flat on my chest. Her skin was hot. Mine was cold and cracking. "You're unraveling. Look at you!"

I looked down. Yeah. She wasn't wrong.

My new spikes — the ones I just grew from eating that bastard — they were splitting. Shadow peeling off like burnt paper. The human flesh I stole wasn't sticking. My body couldn't hold it.

"Told you eating humans was different," I muttered. "Tastes like —"

"Tastes like what?" She got right in my face. Close enough I could see the sweat on her lip. "Kael, talk to me. What does it taste like?"

"Like copper," I said. "Like rot and iron and — God, like a battery on my tongue. It's fighting me.