Page 48 of The Buck Stops Hare

River took a deep breath, and his chest opened wider, the orb flaring as distant chanting and whispers, even song, all muddled together, echoing from him.

Buck’s orb flickered, dimming as it shrank in size.

“Do not pass on me yet, bloodletter,” Grim said. His godbeast tramped by, feathered tail slashing the air, body like a large black cat, head just as elongated with the razor jaw. Were I any more coherent, I’d have taken in their strangeness, memorized the beauty in them. Compared to them, Rayne and I were such plain things, even Storm, drab and vengeful.

Storm opened his chest, the orb within him almost as large as River’s, but nowhere near as bright. And Grim, his too, was dim compared to River, but the chest of their bestial forms flowered open and twisting light unleashed, all drifting toward my mate.

“What’s the little red—” I watched as that tiny orb revolving River’s soul spun and followed the gently swirling energy like an ember. Each of the other gods watched, eyes tracking it with concern and alarm.

“A soul. Not his.” Brook steeled himself, chest shuddering. “I thought he released—child.”

Goose bumps rose across my skin, and I found myself reaching to hold Brook as much as he held me. I wasn’t sure what he knew, but small amounts of light drained from Grim and Storm, a gentle accompaniment to the torrent that River fed into Buck’s prone form, gently swirling the red ember that shouldn’t have been in River to begin with.

“Why is there a child’s soul— He isn’t pre—”

“No. That’s not the color of— Don’t worry. We’ll talk about it later if it’s Buck’s burden to bear.” Brook sniffed hard and pulled a hand to rub at his eyes, breath shuddering.

River’s forms cycled in the shadows of his light, the thin young male, the monstrous beasts lurking in his history, his godbeast and more all flowing about until the dirge silenced and a whisper took its place in the cold night.

The whisper and the gently flowing light morphed into River’s human guise, insubstantial like what a ghost or hologram would have been, his shadow the great godbeast he had only been minutes ago. Instead of the flowing shirt and leggings he always seemed to wear, he wore a pale cloth tied about his waist, the gathering of it draped front and back to cover his indecency. His face had been painted, a swath of red over his eyes and black markings down his cheeks and chin. His shoulders bore a flow of beads and gold, decking him from wrist to ankle as well, all adornments that shone on his bronzed skin. Bright blue eyes lifted to the sky as he stretched his hands out, cupped and tilted them. There, over his fingers, dripped water. The moment it touched Buck’s light, his chest shuddered, and body jerked. “Even a death god has life in him.”

River’s human form wavered like a mist, drifting away at the edges, dissipating a little at a time. A tiny whimper left Brook’s throat as River cast his gaze toward him. Their gazeslocked for the entirety until he mouthed three words on lips that disappeared in a wisp. “I love you.”

Brook braced a fist and held it to his chest, standing tall as Buck gasped a shaking breath and opened eyes that glowed a violent blue, all the cold in them of a drowning river.

I regretted looking away from River, because in the time I took to watch Buck and back again, all the shadows had coalesced and gone, in its place a single strange shape, white as driven snow save for long black, spindly legs, a swaying elegant neck, and a red-masked head with black markings over a pointed black beak. A sandhill crane.

It spread its wings; the gesture shaky as black wingtips shuddered. The shadows swept around him and coalesced, blue eyes blinking, the only remarkable feature of the bird.

“River…” Brook tore away from me and rushed out as the bird collapsed into his arms. In Brook’s grasp, heavy breaths shook the bird’s chest.

Grim and Storm stood once more in their human forms, staring at the sight of River in bird form laying in Brook’s arms.

In Storm’s shadow lay the rumble of a storm cloud and Grim’s form showed a rainbow sheen of scales over a great fat snake. And where Buck lay, a slab of stone painted in layers of sticky blood faded back into somewhere deep in the shadowed forms of his being.

“Whatever witch cast this spell will pay. I have seen to it,” Grim hissed through his teeth before staring down Buck with a sneer. “Were you not in such a precarious state, brother?”

Buck bowed his head in submission then to Storm and River in turn, before standing on shaking legs.

“Use this gift well, brother.” Brook’s voice shuddered as he stroked the crane in his arms.

Brook turned his head toward me and I took it as a sign to approach one step at a time until I went to my knees before him. “What did he do?”

“He gave his human form up, destroyed it for you and your mate.” Brook stroked River’s sleek head where his nictitating membranes flickered over avian eyes in a slow blink. Before I could protest, Brook sighed. “He’ll have to gather the power to make another. Shedding his mortal form is a great sacrifice.”

“He can’t remake himself again?” I reached out and stroked over River’s head, hand shaking.

“Not the same. He’ll come back to us, but that body will not. Maybe he’ll be similar enough.” He offered me a half smile, and I bit back new tears until warm hands settled over my shoulders from behind. I glanced up to stare at Buck, gazing into wickedly blue eyes, a reminder of River’s sacrifice.

“Thank you,” I said, a whisper caught in my throat.

Brook steeled himself and nodded. “We may be thanking you at a later date. Be well, Buckling Stone and Weathering Cliff. We will return strong one day.”

And in a whisper of power, like water, they sank into the ground to return to their people and wait for River to regenerate.

I didn’t feel like I deserved what they’d just done.

But when Buck kissed the top of my head, my entire heart seized. “You saved my land.”

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