Lionstar notices the second sideways glance, and Sakshemar’s odd pause. He wishes his head would work, let him figure out what’s going on, but wishing won’t help and neither will frustration. 

“Sakshemar is the best friend I have ever had,” he says, as clearly as he can.

Awwww. He hugs Lionstar some more. "Same you," he says in his awkward Kaled'a'in.

Skandranon shuffles his claws some more, mutters something, and leaves. Amberdrake watches the two of them for a moment longer, smiling a little, but with an intent look, more confused than suspicious. Then he nods to Sakshemar and leaves as well. 

Lionstar pulls his friend close, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Did you?” Belated pause. “Anyone nearby?”

"No one," he murmurs back; and then he hesitates, and continues in Haighlei. "You understand, I never touched that boat. And if even the faintest whisper of a rumour gets back to the Empire suggesting I might have done it without touching the boat..." He shakes his head. "Blood will be spilled over it. I don't see that making things any better for anyone." Wryly, "Wish I'd just burned the damned thing, but I wasn't sure I could avoid taking the forest with it."

Lionstar is foggy enough that it takes him a few seconds to parse what Sakshemar is saying even though he was already thinking it. 

"Understand," he hisses back, also in Sakshemar's tongue, the words aren't coming easily to him right now but he can sort of manage. "Angry. For me. Easy use that. Less easy fire." It's known that strong emotions can make it easier to use Gifts to their full power, and Sakshemar's power is...considerable. "Could wish different," lights in the world, however many of them, gone and yet again it's indirectly his fault, "but...glad alive. Glad friend, protect me. Safe."

He shakes his head. "Hope not you trouble, because me. Want help." A twitch of a smile. "If trouble wait, I better." 

He smiles, and hugs him again. "Friend," he murmurs.

There is not, in fact, any trouble that night. 

Or the next day, unless one counts the minor incident when Lionstar first tries to walk to the bathhouse and Kechara, in a fit of excitement, almost knocks him over before the Healing student can intervene. 

Three entire days pass without any kind of trouble, and Lionstar is sitting up in bed, reading his notes (he can do it for almost five minutes at a time now before the headache gets too bad), which he quickly shoves under the mattress when someone knocks. 

It's Amberdrake, with General Judeth. Amberdrake smiles at both of them. Judeth doesn't smile at all. "We need to talk," she says. 

"Talk what?"

"Some news we've just received." General Judeth leans against the wall, arms crossed, and aims a piercing look at Sakshemar. "Skandranon's Silver Gryphons explored the, er, murder scene in more depth. I'm told they have certain techniques for piecing together the events of a crime, by looking at the position of bodies and weapons, and blood spatters and such. Anyway. They're quite confident that no one embarked or disembarked from that boat – that is, that the explorers, for some reason I can't fathom, decided to murder each other. Their first thought was mutiny and an even split siding with the captain, but there's no clear sign of ranks. They just all turned on each other at once." 

Judeth pauses, rubs her neck. She looks unhappy and stressed and tired. "You're our resident cultural expert. Is there anything you can think of to explain this – anything at all? Some taboo that might be violated? Drugs? I'm at a loss here. It doesn't make sense." 

Amberdrake, who's been pacing with his eyes on the floor, pauses at the foot of the bed. "Skan suspects you, Sakshemar. I told him not to be silly." But he catches Sakshemar's eye, holds his gaze, and mouths words in Haighlei, his back turned at an angle where Judeth can't see. We must speak. Later. Alone. 

He tilts his head slightly in acknowledgment of Amberdrake's message, but shakes it at Judeth's question. "I not know," he says. "Nothing do this. No sense, yes, I think same."

Judeth sighs. "Didn't really expect you to, lad. Bad business all round. None of this bodes well." She shares a hard-to-read look with Amberdrake, and turns to leave. 

"Well, then, young man." Amberdrake's voice is pitched to carry a little more than it needs to be, and jovial, though his eyes are nothing but. "Watching you with your friend – you are no a Healer, but some other things shine through. Have you considered training as a kestra'chern? It would be my pleasure to discuss this with you, if you do have interest." 

Judeth shoves her head back through the curtain to make a face at him. "Really, Drake, must you always be recruiting?" And then she's gone. 

He blinks, surprised, and answers as though there is no subtext whatsoever. "I haven't—really? Me?"

But then, with another slight tilt of his head, he switches languages to make his answer clear to listeners. "If you think, then yes." He glances at his friend. "If not too much time away from Lionstar, while he need me."

“I will be all right,” Lionstar assures him. (Internally, he’s seething with curiosity and worry, but he can wait to find out.)

Amberdrake smiles at him, and then claps a hand on Sakshemar’s shoulder. The smile fades as he turns away from Lionstar’s line of sight. “Good, then come with me - we can speak in my private rooms.”

He steers Sakshemar out of the Healers’ building, down the crushed-shells street, to a nearby cottage-like dwelling. It’s cozily furnished inside, with pleasant rugs and soft padded chairs. Amberdrake nudges Sakshemar down into one of them.

”You care greatly about your friend,” he says. “You must have been very upset and angry when ill befell him.” And then, making eye contact and with his hand brushing Sakshemar’s shoulder, he switches languages. “Enough to remove the threat to him from a distance?”

...he shakes his head. "I'd say you don't know what you're asking me, but you at least know enough not to let anyone else know you're thinking it," he says. "You can't let it get out to my people that you even considered for a moment the idea that I might have done such a thing. Not if you like not being at war with them. I can't meaningfully tell you that I didn't, because there is no possibility I might admit it if I had, not with the consequences that would bring. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it, I want to live in a world where you didn't just ask me that question."

He thinks about those consequences—the horror and revulsion his people would feel, the way they would cry for blood until King Shalaman had to go to war no matter how much he might personally like the people of White Gryphon—and shivers.

"Rather you decide I killed them all with my own hands, and send me home to be executed for it, than take another step down the road of suggesting I might have done it any other way."

Amberdrake nods, satisfaction and deep sadness warring in his eyes, and releases Sakshemar’s shoulder. “No Truthsayer here, but Empath, I see enough.” 

He pulls over a cushion, and sits on the floor, so his head is lower than Sakshemar’s. “No intention of war,” he says. “I know enough and I am not stupid. Will not share to anyone. These rooms are a kestra’chern’s. Well shielded, no one hear, no one ever consider to eavesdrop. No one else will ever think it, certainly not Skandranon.”

A bitter twitch of a smile. “Empathy is not an offensive Gift, my dear friend Skan is not known for creativity - he lacks the imagination. I...do not. My goal here is the safety and wellness of my people. Among them Lionstar.” A pause; his jaw works. “And you,” he adds finally.

He leans forward, intent. ”And so I need know truth, even if never speak again. Was it loss of control, so training will remove danger? Or was it purposeful? You are no monster, Sakshemar - it was no convenient lie to say I would take you as student. I want to help you, so that you help Lionstar and others, and I...need know you are safe to have in my city.”

...fine. Fine.

"I'd never decide to kill that way," he says. "Not unless whatever I was facing was worse than the chaos I'd be responsible for if I got caught. I'd do it to stop the world from ending, maybe; I'm not sure I would for anything less. But—I have a strong Gift and a bad temper and that's a poor combination." He sighs. "I've killed before. My first lion hunt, when I was ten—a servant's child stole my knife, and I took it back, and then I was still angry. My father told everyone the boy was mauled by a lion. Looked enough like it that no one questioned him. When I told Lionstar, he said he'd never known me to be anything but kind, and maybe I'd grown past it. Then this happened, and I found out I hadn't. Am I safe to have in your city? I don't know. I want to be. But wanting doesn't make it so."

Amberdrake nods again, heavily. “I see. I am...relieved, I think. I will make it known that you and Lionstar are battle-shy, after your ordeal, and would be well if no one startled you. That ought soften some risks.”

He stares past Sakshemar. “And the future? Wanting does not make it so, no, but...offers a path. And you did wield considerable control of both Gift and emotion, did not harm Lionstar. Emotions are to train as Gifts are. Some of kestra’chern’s training is this. If you wish not to be threat again, to city or friends, would be well to practice this at least.”

"If there really is a way to learn how to control my feelings, I'd be stupid not to try it."

Amberdrake smiles. ”First exercise, then. You need learn to clear your mind of thought and emotion, that might quickly call on this. I wish you close your eyes, sit and focus on breath. If you notice mind drifting, other thoughts or feelings, return it to your breath.” He stretches past Sakshemar to retrieve an hourglass of sand. “We try for ten minutes now. First time is hard, easier with practice.”

He flips the glass. “Start now.”

Well that sounds excruciating, but if it helps...

He gives it an honest effort. By minute three, he's tense with the strain of keeping himself still so long. He can't focus on his breath because he needs that concentration to stop himself from jumping to his feet and pacing.