Chapter 133: Painted in Gold
Bloody Heaven reached his hands to the sky, laughter tearing out of him in broken, ecstatic bursts. His body trembled, not with fear, but with something closer to rapture. Then, almost gently, like a gentleman settling into an evening ritual, he stabbed his own fingers into his empty eye sockets.
His body jolted violently. No one watching could tell whether it was agony or joy that moved through him. Perhaps, by then, there was no longer a difference.
Micah stood immovable at the sight. But Helga was not so composed.
"You Blood River filth," she said, voice shaking with something between fury and grief. "If you do this to your own flesh, if you have so little regard for your own body, what will you do to the world?" Her spectral form flared, light bleeding off her like a wound reopening. "Even if my darling weren't already against you, I would stand here all the same. I will not let you, or your wretched god, defile the world I bled for."
