“I know.” She smiled impishly at his consternation. “Astar told me.”
“I’m gonna kill him,” Jak said to the sky. Had something up there shifted? Like a cloud in a cloudless sky. That was a weird shade of violet. He narrowed his eyes, searching for whatever had moved up there. “If we live through this, I’m going to make him pay.”
“Hmm.” Stella was looking up, too. “Something is coming.”
Jak lowered his gaze to hers. “Whatever happens, stay behind me.”
“I don’t think your blades will help with this,” she said, looking past him.
He spun, keeping her squarely behind him, and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The air itself seemed to be condensing, visibly thickening into the shape of a man built like himself, but several times taller. “Why do they all have to be giant?” he muttered, drawing his sword and palming one of Stella’s daggers.
In nonchalant defiance of his instructions, Stella stepped up on his dagger side. “That’s a question worth considering,” she murmured. “Though perhaps when we have more leisure to do so.”
The being continued to take form, the black stone they stood upon now rising up in a fountain, like liquid pouring from below to fill a vessel in defiance of the laws of gravity. As the man became more solid, he took on different coloration—ending up looking a lot like Jak himself, down to the sword and dagger.
“I’m much better looking than that,” he noted with considerable disgust.
“You are,” Stella agreed—not complimenting him, but with almost academic interest. “Remember how the stone giant became a gryphon like Zeph after it saw her, but kind of blurred?”
“Yeah.” She was right. This thing looked like a squidgy copy of himself. How Jak might look in fifty more years if he spent that whole time on a whiskey bender. Note to self: maybe I should start drinking less. He looked like shit with a drunkard’s bulbous nose. “What does it want—can you tell?”
“It’s… curious. Not aggressive. And…” She closed her mouth on whatever she’d been about to add, chewing her full bottom lip uneasily.
“The stone giant was curious if you could tear people in half, stick the odd pieces together, and still have them work. That was pretty aggressive,” he felt he had to point out.
“I’m not arguing that its interest in us hasn’t been destructive,” she murmured. “Just answering your question.”
The stone man smiled at Stella, a sick parody of Jak’s jaunty grin. “Eeyem wuv wittoo,” it said.
Stella sighed. “Oh dear.”
“You understood that?” Jak demanded. The stone man mimicked him as he raised his sword. The thing’s stone version of the sword didn’t look sharp, but it would work just fine as a club to bash their brains out. “What did it say?”
Stella slid her gaze to his, trepidation in her expression. “It said it’s in love with me.” Grimacing at whatever she saw in Jak’s face, she added, “I’d say it’s just mimicking you from before, but it means it. At least, those are the emotions I’m sensing.”
“Fuck me,” Jak swore, stepping in front of her. “You can’t have her,” he flung out. Gauging the distance, he considered nailing the thing in the eye with his dagger. Hitting the target wasn’t the problem. Doing it damage would be. Battling that stone giant at Gieneke had been like chipping at marble, and he doubted this would be any different.
“Eyem gonnah killem,” the man said, advancing on them, waving its sword-club.
“No need to translate that one,” Jak bit out as they backed up. The man took several more steps, gaze clearly fixed on Stella.
“Wuv wittooo!!!” it roared.
The defile was behind them somewhere. Jak felt its gaping maw like a chill wind on the back of his neck. He angled them away from the stone man, but it flanked them, backing them toward that edge. This wouldn’t end prettily. “You’ll kill her, man,” he shouted at the thing. “She goes over that edge, she dies, and you’ll never have her.”
The stone man slowed, cocking his head as if thinking.
“Jak, I have an idea,” Stella said, putting a hand on his back.
“Absolutely open to suggestions right now.”
“I think we should jump.”
He couldn’t risk glancing over his shoulder, but he’d give a great deal for a look at her face right then. “Are you going for the tragic ending to our love story, jumping to our deaths because at least we’ll die together?” Come to think of it, that would be preferable to being bludgeoned to death knowing he’d be leaving Stella to the brutal attentions of this monster.
“Dasnarians,” she muttered in disgust. “Always looking to be tragic heroes.”
“Yeah, well, it comes naturally to us.” He feinted to the side, and the stone man took one step to neatly cut him off.
“Apparently. But no, I think I sense a rift down there. If we jump, maybe we can fall through it and get back home.”
A laugh escaped him. “I’m pretty sure you’re not crazy.”
“I’m not. I have my reasons to think it’ll work.”
“Wuv wittoo!” the stone monster howled, sucking up more stone to grow even larger.
“Also,” Stella said in a fainter voice, “its feelings are quite… sexual. I think I’d rather risk jumping.”
Better and better. As much as he hated facing that endless drop, dying together was better than the alternative. His father would be thrilled to know Jak had that much fatalistic Dasnarian in him. He sheathed his sword and dagger and took her hand. Giving her one swift kiss, he grinned. “The only bad part is no one will see this to compose the ballad.”
She laughed, sounding wild, her eyes fierce. “Then we’ll have to live.”
“Your mouth to Danu’s ears.”
“Moranu’s ears.”
“Double the blessing.”
They turned as one. And leapt into the void.
~ 17 ~
Stella had flown many times but had never fallen, certainly not in a human body. Jak gripped her hand, a howl ripping from him, and she surprised herself by screaming too. The atavistic terror made it difficult to concentrate, but she found the rift she’d sensed, wrenching it wider. It was too much off to the side and needed to be bigger. Bigger. Without the Star, she couldn’t have done it. Straining her mental muscles, she forced it wider.
And felt the brief disorientation as they passed through the rift.
“Oof!” Both their screams cut off as they hit ground. Fortunately they seemed to have landed in a giant snowdrift, but still, the hard landing had a stunning effect.
“Are you all right?” Jak asked after a while, his voice rough.
She prodded herself to think of a reply. “You know that joke about how falling feels like flying until you hit the ground?”
“Never heard that one,” he wheezed.
“Well, it doesn’t. Falling feels nothing like flying, even before hitting ground. I never want to do that again.”
“At least we hit snow-covered ground and lived through it,” he replied reasonably. “Or did we? I’m getting so used to dying that I might not be able to tell the difference anymore.”