He nods.

"It's about the jurisdiction thing," he says. "You want to say your position is that 'no crime happened here', about me killing that person. The phrasing is important. If you don't say that, then you're saying that you get to judge me but you haven't decided how, and that's going to worry my father. Even if you strongly imply you've decided it was no crime, there's a difference between that and using the right formal phrase, and if you look like you're leaving room to maybe decide something else, my father's going to put pressure on Shalaman to take me back so he can make the declaration himself. He doesn't want a criminal for a son."

Amberdrake makes a face. 

"Your father is...that shape person, then," he says dryly. He frowns more deeply. "I mislike such bindings on our words. However. It is my true opinion that your actions are not deserving punishment, which is same as not crime in a sense. Judeth will not like it either, but. Will see. I suspect you are right here. Repeat the right formal phrase again, please?"

"'No crime happened here,'" he repeats, making sure his pronunciation is clear. The phrasing is recognizable but distinct from how you might normally translate that sentiment into Haighlei, even for a more generic formal context. "It's judicial speech, that's why it sounds so strange. If it'd make you feel better you can hold whatever your equivalent of a trial would be, first, and then you'd just be translating the conclusions of your court into terms that leave no room for misinterpretation."

Amberdrake nods, thoughtful. He writes the words down, carefully. 

"I think it would be long to convene our court and interpret our laws for your case," he admits. "I would prefer not delaying this message further. Perhaps a court will be convened – Judeth would prefer it, for being proper – but your case undoubtedly self-defense, and given you saved Lionstar's life as well, not complicated verdict." 

Amberdrake rises, and switches back to Kaled'a'in. "Lionstar, do you need anything? No? If you are sure. Please call for one of the Healing students if you are uncomfortable." 

And he sweeps out of the room. 

Sakshemar sighs and looks down at his friend. He really doesn't feel any particular pain about killing that person. Amberdrake's skepticism was obvious, but Amberdrake doesn't know Sakshemar. Doesn't know how many time's he's already killed, how easy it is for him to feel another person's pain and revel in it instead of flinching from it—

And now he's remembering the crime he didn't admit to committing. Gods, if a whisper of that got out, his father would want White Gryphon scoured from the land with blood and fire just to stop the rumour from spreading. Naraynan would kill his son with his own hand and then bully the people of White Gryphon into covering it up, if that was what it took to keep people from finding out that Sakshemar not only has a late-blooming mind-Gift but massacred the crew of a small ship with it. And enjoyed doing so.

To his surprise, he finds himself flinching from the memory. It felt good at the time, but now...

It's the thing he was never able to explain to Lionstar past the language barrier. Or maybe it wasn't the language barrier, maybe he just didn't really want to get the point across. Lionstar has all these ideals about making the world a better place, and does things for those reasons, and Sakshemar... Sakshemar just hurts people because he feels like it. Lionstar thought he'd grown out of it, or something, but he very clearly hasn't. He's the same old Sakshemar, and his friend trusts him, and—is he right to? And if he's not, what exactly is Sakshemar supposed to do about it at this point? Lionstar isn't exactly in a state to stop trusting him. His friend is depending on him and he can't just—say 'I'm not who you think I am' and walk away, even though it's true and it matters and he hates the thought of being trusted for false reasons.

Those people may very well have been innocent of all this. He may very well have had no valid practical reason to need them dead except the fact that he was in danger of burning down the forest with the heat of his uncontrollable rage. He doesn't tend to think he believes in justice, but... it feels unfair.

Except that then he thinks about his alternatives—talk to them? Get their side of the story? Judge them, as his father would, except that unlike his father he cares more for the truth than for the family reputation? And he pictures the scene, pictures swallowing his rage and playing lawkeeper and judge at once, wanting to kill them but letting them keep their lives for the sake of some principle—and he feels sick. Wrong. A judge must be merciful, when the law calls for mercy. A judge must be able to stand in court and look down at someone he personally wants to light on fire, and judge them fairly according to the truth of their actions. And he can't do that. He—shouldn't do that. It feels like a betrayal of himself to even think about doing that.

But... really, when it comes right down to it, who would he rather betray? Himself, or Lionstar?

Lionstar isn't trying to follow the conversation, he's fluent enough in Haighlei now to have caught most of it normally but nothing is normal. He prefers the scenario where he can listen and keep up and maybe even help his friend, who's now as good as alone in a foreign city and culture, trying to thread his way through the consequences of, ultimately, Lionstar's failure. It was his watch. (Lionstar keeps having the sense that he's thinking about it wrong, that Ma'ar wouldn't have been caught up in it like this, and Sakshemar isn't upset with him, but...still.) He can't, anyway; for this, he needs to count on his friend.

(It feels so critical, here and now, that he has a friend here who he can trust. Maybe, possibly, Ma'ar wouldn't have died in a surprise retaliation after failing at everything he had tried to achieve if he'd had a trusted friend at his back.

And so, instead, he lies and tries to piece together the biggest problem that he's facing.

Which is, ultimately, that he doesn't really remember who he is. And it matters. Ma'ar worked for decades, figured out how to live forever, because he cared. About...something. Because he had a plan, a goal, a mission... And Lionstar isn't Ma'ar, not right now. He's a not-especially-skilled teenaged boy whose head that isn't working right, in some strange sense his existence so far is numbered in weeks not years, and – and he has notes, he has what he's said to Sakshemar, he even has the fragments he can still remember, but what if it's not enough, what if by the time his brain is working it's only shards, and he can't put it back together anymore and make a person... He can guess but if he guesses wrong then the person who survives, the person who Sakshemar risked his neck to rescue, won't be Ma'ar, it'll be someone else, and then– 

And then it would all be for nothing, is what part of him whispers. Which isn't completely true, he can get some of a Ma'ar back, or he can just be Lionstar and try to do what he thinks is right, and that would be...better than the alternative...but still losing something. Not enough. Forgetting is its own kind of death. 

His friend has been very quiet. He seems distracted. 

"Sakshemar?" he whispers, beckoning for him to come close. "Need your help. You are the only one here who knows. Who I was before. Need to remember. Not all. Just...why. Core of it. What I am. Something I can...hold onto now...put the rest back in order after. Before I lose it all. I am...afraid..." There are tears in his eyes again. He wants Sakshemar to hold him, not because it really addresses any of his most fundamental problems right now but it makes it feel less like he's dying.

...yeah. It's really no contest, isn't it.

He hugs his friend.

"You care so much," he murmurs. "About... everyone. Lights in the world, you said." And maybe... maybe Sakshemar needs to start caring like that. He can see how he would, if he wanted to. It wouldn't make him a good person but it might get him close enough to start actually getting better at not murdering people, and then maybe he could solve the problem of Lionstar's misplaced trust by becoming someone worth trusting. Works out better for everyone, that way.

A flicker of memory. Stars in the sky, silhouette of a tower. The first time he saw Urtho's fortress. 

The first time he found someone else who was trying. It's all blending together – it wasn't a single moment, obviously, it was days and months and years, studying under the Mage of Silence, but he doesn't remember those clearly. For this purpose, for an anchor, the stars and the Tower will do. Lights in the world. Worth saving. 

Except that Urtho is dead. The memory of it hits him again, like a dark stain spreading across the crystal-clear sky. 

"My fault," he whispers, though tears. "The Cataclysm. Not sure...what mistake I made...but maybe I should stop. Not risk breaking anything else. Maybe no one else will do it, fix things, but...maybe still better."

Only, it feels so wrong. It makes him feel sick. Not just because it would be a betrayal of Ma'ar, who fought so hard to come back, to continue his fight. It would be a betrayal of himself, too – just Lionstar, whoever that is, whatever that means. "Sakshemar, I cannot – it would not be me, anymore. Would not be who you befriended, if I were to give up." 

The stars are clear, the lights in the world, but nothing else is. He remembers explaining it to Sakshemar, he's pretty sure – and he remembers feeling determination and certainty, not this hopeless confusion – but none of what he actually said, or thought, or why it felt right and good to grieve but not regret, to put the past behind him and move forward with his next plan. "Sakshemar, I do not know if I can trust me. Help...?"

"Better to try," he says. "Try, make mistake, learn, try better. Fix things, fix all things, very hard. Lifetimes and lifetimes of work. If you stop first time you make big mistake, you never finish. I trust you. You hurt now, need time to heal. I help. I keep you safe, I take care of you, I fix things, I learn. You say before, you make vow, promise to fix world. You say, if gods think you monster, is their problem, not yours. I also think this. I think—" He frowns slightly, trying to fit ideas into the shapes of words. "I not good like you. I not promise to fix world. But, you my friend. You need help. Is important. Is... most important thing, for me. So. You not give up. You rest, and get better, and I help you, and when you better, we fix things together. Because—if gods think you monster, gods are wrong. I know you. I know you good."

"I promised," Lionstar agrees. "I made a vow." Another piece to add, hanging it from that single clear image of the stars and the Tower.

It...would be better, some part of him thinks vaguely, if he could check it for himself, if he didn't need to rely on Sakshemar's recounting what an earlier, less broken version of him said, to put himself back together. 

But maybe not. Maybe it is better, not to try to be self-contained. To be able to filter that vision through someone else, to have them agree that it's important. If Ma'ar had allies he could trust, like this, maybe it wouldn't have ended in fire and destruction. 

We fix things together. 

"I will not give up," he agrees. "We will not give up. No matter how many lifetimes it takes."

He wishes he could remember Urtho's face. But Sakshemar can't help with that, it's not like he ever saw the man. Add that loss to an already-too-long list, and...keep going.

Ten minutes of thinking is enough to exhaust him, and he can't keep his eyes open anymore. Still, ten minutes is better than before. "Need to sleep. Your watch?" he says, with a small smile. Sakshemar is taking all of the watches right now. 

He grins. "My watch," he agrees, hugging him. "Sleep good."

The rest of the day passes, and the night, and the next day. Lionstar is still sleeping an absurd amount, but he's more lucid during the awake periods, and strong enough to get up and walk the short distance to the privy. When they're alone, he asks Sakshemar more questions, and builds the answers into his memory of the tower. (At one point he asks for his notes, and briefly tries to read them, but his eyes won't focus and it makes him dizzy, so that can wait.) 

Kechara comes to visit them often. At one point, she gifts them each with a dead squirrel that she caught herself, just for them. 

And then, toward the end of the next day, rapid-fire footsteps approach. Claws, not human feet. A gryphon beak shoves through the curtain, followed by the rest of a gryphon – one much, much larger than Kechara, with feathers as white as the limestone cliffs, and with no hint of her playfulness. Amberdrake is jogging on the creature's heels. 

"Ssakshemar, sson of Naraynan." The gryphon is furious, and his sibilant accent is correspondingly stronger. "We have found ssomething that we ssuspect you know of. We would like an explanation. NOW." 

His first instinctive reaction is threat! and he moves to put himself between Lionstar and the intruder, hissing and scrabbling for a weapon, but he hasn't been keeping his knife close to hand, stupid—fire, then—but careful, in an enclosed space full of flammable things, have to focus, can't afford to burn too much—

And then his ears belatedly report hearing the sound of speech, and he recognizes Amberdrake, and observes that the gryphon is being aggressive but not outright attacking, and he relaxes fractionally and struggles for enough clarity to decode meaning from the foreign words in their unfamiliar accent.

"What," he snaps, still standing guard over Lionstar's bed and looking ready to take on the gryphon barehanded if necessary.

“Hey, hey, hey.” It’s Amberdrake’s turn to place himself between the angry gryphon and the two of them, one hand raised in a placating gesture, the other reaching for Sakshemar’s shoulder. His entire manner is so soothing, it’s like he’s projecting with Empathy, but he isn’t - it’s all posture and tone and the look in his eyes. 

”Skandranon Rashkae,” he says, still calmly but with disapproval. “I said gently! Be polite to the young man, please, and do not raise your voice here.”

This is the point at which Lionstar, still struggling toward wakefulness, sits bolt upright, every muscle going rigid. He doesn’t quite cry out but his eyes flash to Sakshemar, full of mute alarm.

He growls past Amberdrake at the gryphon and then turns, his anger fading, and sits on Lionstar's bed and hugs him. "All good," he says. "Angry gryphon just be stupid, not attack us. All good. Safe."

Lionstar's stupid, useless teenaged body doesn't have any Mind-Gifts, and they're in territory that suddenly feels a lot more hostile than it did thirty seconds ago; he has no way of safely conveying why he's reacting the way he is. Which is that Skandranon Rashkae, the Black Gryphon – apparently a white gryphon now – is, one: the scourge of countless battles, the bloodthirsty nightmare coming out of the sky to rip his men to pieces, and, two: almost certainly on the team of assassins that killed Ma'ar shortly after Urtho's Tower went up into flame and lava. 

(He never understood Urtho's fond feelings toward his gryphons; they always seemed savage to him, though Kechara is a very cute exception. Not that his makaar were any better but he had to keep up somehow, when he got the first inklings that Tantara was considering war, and he was damn glad of it after Urtho stabbed him in the back. Amazing how much clearer the memories start coming back once he's terrified for his life.)

But Sakshemar is there, and Amberdrake is standing up for them. Lionstar reminds himself that Skandranon doesn't actually have any way of knowing who he used to be. 

Skandranon deflates visibly, dropping his forelegs to the ground. "Ssorry, Drake. I am ssimply upsset at our disscovery. You are right, I ought not jump to conclusionss."

He preens his neck-feathers for a moment, and when he goes on, his voice is much clearer and less distorted by the beak. "A few days ago, when you arrived, I placed my Silver Gryphons on the task of finding this expedition. This morning one of my scouts found their ship, moored several miles from here." His feathers puff again, involuntarily, and the gryphon-accent strengthens. "And their sslaughtered bodiess." He resettles himself. "I wondered, perhaps, if you might know anything of this?" 

Well. That's inconvenient.

If he'd been thinking... but no, when he looks back over his memories of the time since he killed all those people, there's no point at which it would've been safe to go torch the ship. He didn't have the energy to do it right afterward, and once he was back with Lionstar he would've either had to abandon him in that cave for several more hours, or drag him to the shore and back, neither of which looks good from a safety perspective. Lionstar's recovery is his top priority and it wouldn't have been worth taking the chance.

Damn, does he ever wish he'd used fire in the first place, though. If he could've done it that way without risking burning down the forest.

He sighs, meets the gryphon's eyes, and says in his native tongue, "What are you expecting to hear? That I snuck onto their ship with my hunting knife and killed a dozen-odd people? One of them a mage, even? Or maybe I had help, and chose to send them to murder a bunch of strangers instead of helping me bring Lionstar here safe? You know what, if it'll simplify your life politically, fine. I hate lying but this is bigger than me. Tell everyone I killed them. It'll upset my father but it might still be a better idea than letting people think it might've been one of yours."

Lionstar quickly turns his face into Sakshemar's tunic, hoping that they'll think he's just hiding in fright from the large, upset gryphon. Really, he's trying to keep his expression from giving anything away. 

Of course Sakshemar wasn't going to rest until he had made sure there were no more potential assassins who could find them. Moving to a new camp wouldn't have been enough to satisfy him – correctly, in Lionstar's opinion, Sakshemar isn't as accustomed to moving in deep forest and with an unconscious friend in his arms, he would've left an unmistakeable trail right to their new hideout. There's no way in the world he would sleep before taking care of that threat. 

Maybe he did kill them all with the hunting knife. Lionstar's seen him take out full-grown wyrsa that way. More likely, he somehow used his Gifts in aid. They've literally practiced that move – fear, to paralyze an enemy, keep them pinned where they can easily be dispatched. 

...But Sakshemar can't project an emotion without feeling it, and Lionstar knows him. Fear wouldn't have been foremost in his mind. He has a sudden, awful guess at what his friend might have done instead. 

Skandranon blinks. Clearly he understands some Haighlei, but isn't as fluent as Amberdrake, who pats Sakshemar's shoulder reassuringly and then steps away from the bed to whisper a translation in the gryphon's ear – pausing to aim an unreadable sideways look at Sakshemar. 

"Ah. I ssee." Skandranon shifts his feet, claws scratching at the tile; it's an odd look on a gryphon. "Unfortunately our message to your King hass already gone out yessterday. Would that we had a Truth-reader as your people do, ssince I find your attitude odd." He says the approximate translation to Kaled'a'in rather than using the Haighlei term. "If you were not the killer, I hessitate to leave a murderer unmolessted in our territory. My people will invesstigate the sscene further." 

"—really? You don't have Truthsayers at all?" he says, genuinely surprised. "I knew you didn't treat Gifts the way the Haighlei do but I didn't think the Gifts themselves were that different. Though I guess that explains why you didn't drag me in front of one first thing." He frowns. "Speaking of which, I'm still not impressed with you for barging in here the way you did. Even if you were right that I'd done something, Lionstar didn't, and it's not fair to scare him like that just because you're angry with me. He's hurt and he needs rest. You should treat your people better than that."

Amberdrake answers, in very level Haighlei. “Suspect training and not Gifts differ. An Empath such as I can of course sense emotion not matching words,” again, his eyes briefly narrow, but out of both Skandranon and Lionstar’s view, “but none have technique to perfectly find lies.” 

And he lifts his spread hands in apology, switching back to Kaled’a’in. “Lionstar, I am sorry for startling you. As Skan pointed out to me, were your friend guilty,” his eyes flick back to Sakshemar but his voice is unwavering, “his off-guard response might be telling.” A chuckle. “And telling indeed it was, in a different way - his first move was to protect you. A good friend indeed.”

Sakshemar smiles. Of course he protected Lionstar.

His smile fades into a more thoughtful, serious look; he seems almost on the point of saying something, and then he glances at Skandranon and frowns slightly and doesn't.