Author's Note: A very big 'thank you so much!' goes out to Scarlet Garter, who pointed out that I was misusing the term 'regnant'; all corrections to the proper term ('regent') have been made. I am sorry for the confusion on my behalf.


Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run


When Last We Met: After an invitation to Central City from Glitch, Cain arrives to find everything not as he left it. With Lady Lavender growing weaker, Akadellia preparing to reclaim the throne, and the threat of the New Resistance, he is left to wait for the official announcement and the world as he knows it to change.


Chapter Four: The Regent's Plight

A sharp, officious knock on his door brought Cain out of a distant daydream. He sat up quickly, knocking to the floor the book that had rested on his chest. He couldn't for the life of him remember what he'd been reading; he tried to recall it as he shook the cobwebs out of his mind, but he came up with nothing.

Cain left the book where it lay as he stood and stretched. He was stiff and sore from having fallen asleep in the chair and the kinks wouldn't be easing from his shoulders any time soon. He should have known better; the chairs, like everything in the Central Palace, could be misleadingly enticing.

In the past few days of adjusting to his new life of relative leisure, Cain had learned a few things – one of them being that only a handful of people came knocking on his door, and none were unwelcome. Not to say that he hadn't received more than a few quaking messenger boys delivering reports, boys expecting a rumoured hero and finding only a tired ex-Tin Man on the other side of the door.

He braced himself as he opened the door; living in the palace also had that unfortunate effect on him. He lived under the pretence that at any moment, his entire world could shift. If it meant that he answered his door with a certain amount of trepidation, he supposed it was to be expected.

Bad news did not await him, however, as he was greeted with the sight of the mutt in man-form, watery eyes full of the same anticipation Cain had felt in his own self before he'd turned the knob.

"Everything all right there, Will?" he asked, standing back for the old man to enter. Tutor did so uneasily, glancing around to see how very little belied Wyatt's presence in this place; but for the body that had answered the door, no one could say this room was lived in at all.

"Lady Lavender has requested a meeting with you. You're to go immediately." The old man begrudged having to deliver this news, that much was plain in tone alone.

Cain cleared his throat, biting back the desire to laugh outright. "That it?"

"Mostly," Tutor said, tucking his hands into the pockets of his vest.

Frowning, Cain turned away so that Tutor wouldn't catch him rolling his eyes impatiently. Of all the things he had not missed, it was the way these people seemed to want to dance around every single moment and situation. He could cut the time he spent talking to everyone in half if they'd just get to their damn point straight off. The only person who had ever seemed to understand this was DG – and she had precious little to say to him of late.

"Mind elaborating on mostly, Pooch?" Cain prompted when it became obvious that Tutor wasn't going to get anywhere without more conversational side-stepping.

"Have you met with Lavender since you arrived, Mr. Cain?"

"I wasn't aware she was taking visitors."

Tutor smiled. "You know she's still going on as best she can. With no intention of stepping down for Az to resume governing in her place."

Cain bit his tongue. Sounds about as stubborn as DG; knew the girl had to get it from somewhere. Though, in all fairness, he'd already figured this one out. The hours after the double eclipse, when Azkadellia had succumbed to anguish, becoming near-catatonic with guilt, it was Lavender who had taken charge of the Resistance fighters, worked with the Sorceress' advisors at negotiating the surrender of the Longcoats. It was as if nine annuals of imprisonment had done nothing to her, as if she were not Lightless.

Seemed a shame to see that same strength of spirit fail the regent now.

"She's got Azkadellia in a tight spot, right enough," Cain said, shaking his head disapprovingly. If Lavender did not step down and give her blessing to her daughter, the people would never support Azkadellia. If the woman was coming closer and closer to her journey over the sands, it was downright idiotic to push herself into maintaining order in her daughter's stead. The more he spoke with those closest to the Gales – Glitch, Tutor, hell, even the Seeker himself – the more he learned that he wasn't the only mind of this opinion.

"Lavender has confidence she can continue." The disbelief was so thick in Tutor's voice that it caused Cain to raise an eyebrow.

"And you don't agree with her."

A breathy chuckle escaped the old teacher as he shook his head. "It was my knowledge that was sought in the beginning, Mr. Cain, never my opinion. I did my best, but... well, I'm just a teacher. Astor would have known better what to expect."

Cain grit his teeth against the mention of the Mystic Man. How his loss had altered the outcome, changed all their paths. His own most of all. Had the old man known what he was doing when he forced Cain to stay with DG?

"What could the Mystic Man have helped?" Cain asked. "His power was almost as broken as Lavender's, by the time the Sorceress was done with him." Though, from what DG had told him, the old coot had regained some of it before the end.

Tutor only shook his head. "There's no chance of helping anything. There never was. Only Glinda could help Lavender now."

"You don't believe in those fairy tales, Will." Cain raised an eyebrow.

"I would if it meant saving someone," Tutor said. "But I stand by Lavender's decision. I will serve her unto the end of the world."

"Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Tutor's fidelity didn't surprise him in the least, at least not where the Gales were concerned. The mutt had more than proved himself during the siege on the tower, even Cain had faced that fact in the sunslight of the aftermath. It wouldn't be wrong to assume his loyalty was due to his blood, but considering his earlier errors of judgement, Cain figured it was guilt as much as anything that bound Tutor to Lavender, DG, and Azkadellia.

Well, he thought, I guess we all got our reasons.


There had been a time in his life when Wyatt Cain had easily navigated the tightest spaces, the darkest places in Central City without batting an eyelash. His time in the suit, however, had affected more than just his body, more than his conscience. The realization had come to him slowly over the intervening months he'd been breathing the free air, but he'd learned that he no longer could be so unhindered by his surroundings.

So when the door of Lady Lavender's suite closed behind him, his escape invariably cut off, it shouldn't have surprised him how quickly the air seemed to close in on him. He hadn't expected it, hadn't braced for it; it left hesitation in his step, and he forced himself to continue on into the over-stuffed room. The bow of his chin was jerky, flawed as he paid his respect to Lavender. It wasn't until he'd raised his eyes from the floor that he realized the regent wasn't alone. In the far corner of the room, so separated from her mother that another pair of untrained eyes might not have noticed her at all. She was curled up with her sketchpad, her own eyes on him, a concern in her face that was not repeated in her mother's. She'd taken notice of his discomfort. Cain frowned; of course, she would.

"Mr. Cain," Lavender said, oblivious to his discomfort. His attention was dragged back to her, and he was struck by the changes in her since he'd last seen her, a few days before his departure all those months ago. She seemed less somehow; colour had all but left her; skin faded, greyish, where once she'd merely been fair and pale. "I hope you are well?"

It seemed trivial, to have a woman slowly losing her struggle with illness inquire after his well being. He'd expected gaunt, he'd expected raspy, he'd expected that death-bed glow. All he saw was a woman slowly being leeched of every colour that made her vibrant and beautiful.

"I'm well, thank you, my lady," he said. He did not ask after her health, and in a moment, she gave him a smile of relief.

"I am sorry to call for you at this hour," she began, "but there are a few matters I wish to touch upon with you. DG, my darling, if you would –" There was no need for her to finish, because DG rose – most ladylike, Cain noted disdainfully – and gathered her pencils and her books. Every move was automatic, the tucking away of her creative implements into a leather satchel; Cain guessed that she was used to being asked to make herself scarce when the grown-ups started their jawing; his suspicions confirmed as she gave him one last petulant glance before leaving, he kept his eyes on the floor to stop from turning his head as she passed by.

After the door had closed – softly, to his great interest – Lavender settled her eyes on him and Cain resisted the urge to shiver. The once distinctive lavender irises had hazed to indeterminate grey.

"How does my daughter seem to you, Mr. Cain?" she asked.

Had he really been brought here to talk about DG? It didn't seem right that she would ask him, when she herself would know better than anyone how DG was coping. Then again...

"She seems fine enough, as far as I can tell. Wound tighter than a clockwork soldier, mind you."

Lavender did not respond, only gave him a knowing smile that ran much deeper than Cain cared to delve just then – or at any point.

"My daughter is much more perceptive than most would assume, Mr. Cain," she said. "There are those that believe absolutely that Slippers are free spirits; unrestrained and easily distracted by the brightness of our world. While this can certainly be true in some cases..." She paused, and sighed. "My daughter is underestimated by those who stop to consider her at all; she has this to her great advantage, and she is coming to realize it."

There was nothing that Cain could say; the regent was telling him nothing that he hadn't already figured out on his own. He waited as Lavender readjusted herself in her bed, straightening her back against the mammoth cushioned headboard mounted behind her bed. The throne of a dying queen.

"I was hesitant at first," Lavender continued, turning her muted silver eyes on him again, "when Ambrose suggested his intentions to send for you. May I ask what it was that kept you away?"

"Just trying to settle."

"So far from Central City?" she asked; he'd intrigued her. Damn it.

"No better place."

She smiled again; whatever ailed her, it seemed to neither dampen her spirit or shake her resolve. She was quieter, yes, but by his recollection, she'd always been a bit wispy. It seemed to be one thing about her that had not been passed to either of her daughters.

"Yet you came back when they asked you to." There was admiration in her face, and it made him wholly uncomfortable. His fingers itched to find somewhere better to rest, something to anchor on like his belt or his gun. He near had to force himself to keep his hands at his sides.

"I came where I was needed, my lady."

Lavender smirked; an outright smirk, which unsettled him more than he cared to admit even to himself. If something was funny, he wasn't aware of it and didn't want to be. "I would think it were more a case of being where one was wanted, Mr. Cain." Before he could even think to respond, she was moving on. "What know you of the New Resistance?"

Cain cleared his throat. "Very little. News doesn't travel fast on the outer edges of the realms."

"It travels still," Lavender said. "Word of my illness is spreading quickly. It would have reached you wherever you'd gone to hide, that is assured."

He bit his tongue. Wouldn't be right to defend himself when he wasn't sure she was entirely wrong to be calling him out.

"While this New Resistance is of concern, we will not let it hinder us. I will hold this kingdom together as long as I am able," she continued. "This country needs time to forgive its queen, and I do everything in my power to ensure that time to my daughter."

As Cain stood there, saying nothing, a mess of heavily-opinionated sentences were festering unsaid in the back of his throat. The people of the Zone didn't need time to stop seeing Azkadellia as the Sorceress; it was Lavender who needed to step down, and stop trying to change the course of things.

"Once official word is announced of my condition, there are those on my council who fear there will be... activity from the New Resistance."

"As do you," Cain said.

Lavender nodded solemnly. "The New Resistance poses no threat without DG. They will never sway her to their cause, but I do not wish for her to even become aware of their existence. It would confuse her."

Cain frowned. He was really beginning to question this woman's judgement. He had no intention of making any promises about keeping things from DG. If the time came for her to know, he knew he'd be the one to lay it all out for her. He owed the girl that much.

"I want my daughter kept safe," Lavender said, and the sincerity on her face hurt his heart. "Both of my daughters; Azkadellia has her duties here, and I know that I will not be able to protect her from them much longer. DG, however, I can keep safe, even if it means sending her far from the conflict."

"She won't go easily."

Lavender smiled. What this woman had to smile about for all the dark clouds on her horizon, he didn't know.

"If it meant granting my last wish, Mr. Cain," she said quietly, "I think she'd go very easily indeed."

He listened to her for quite a while longer, keeping his eyes on her and his nods brief, as she droned on at length about her hopes for Azkadellia's second chance. He stayed as attentive as he could as she waxed poetic about birthright, duty, reconstruction, and sacrifice. When finally her voice started to weaken and she began to trail off at awkward places, Cain excused himself politely as he was able and all but ran from the room. The first breath of air in the hallway – stuffy as it was – still left him gulping for more like a drowning man.

Tutor's words came back to him as soon as he was alone. "There's no chance of helping anything. There never was. Only Glinda could help Lavender now." Something more was going on, he could smell it in the air, feel the guises and untruths brushing against his skin every time he moved.

His thoughts whirred so loudly in his head as he traversed the halls of the royal residence that he was sure that every maid and pageboy that crossed his path could hear them. Wyatt Cain hadn't been well-educated; he'd been born to hard-working parents, with tools in his hands instead of books. He held no delusions in thinking he knew much at all about the world in which he lived, and he could admit that he knew even less – almost nothing at all – about the magic forces that ran like an electrical current beneath everything in the Zone, the Light and Dark that connected each being, lacing lives and land together in a tangled web in ways he couldn't ever hope to fathom.

However, in all his annuals, since he was knee-high to his daddy and onward, his experience and intuition had served him better than book learning ever could. Even now, as he was stuck in a political mire and was about to be heading in deeper despite his most serious reservations, he knew more than enough to be taken in by the pretty lies of Lady Lavender.

The door to DG's suite was in front of him before he realized he'd made a conscious decision to talk to her. On the night of his arrival, Glitch had split at the seams and spilled anything and everything that he'd known. Cain, however, was still trying to sort through the mess of suspicions clouding his mind, and he knew where the most honest person in all of Central City slept.

He rapped hard on the door, ears keened for any scuffling inside that would give her away. If his heart was pounding in his chest, he did his best to ignore its existence. That did little more than make him want to turn tail and run, but he kept his feet anchored until he heard the distinct click of shoes in front of the door. Moments later, it was pulled inward, and a pair of sky eyes were training on him.

DG frowned. "You know, the last time you showed up at my door this late, it didn't end too well. What do you want?"

He tried his best to swallow back the grimace of annoyance that wanted to surface, which only served to make him seem in pain. "You got some talking to do, little girl. Mind letting me in?"