Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run


When Last We Met: After returning to Central City without DG, Cain and his companions can hardly expect to be welcomed with open arms. Their arrival finds DG's family still weathing the storm; a contrite sister, an angry father, and a mother, awake and alive, longing for her daughter to return...


Chapter Thirty Four: Sometimes Fabricated, Mostly Accurate

It was becoming very apparent to Cain that those closest to him, and perhaps the majority of the populace in general, were under the impression that he did not need to sleep. Where and when the idea had become ingrained into the minds and mannerisms of those with whom he had even the smallest connection, he couldn't exactly be sure, but as it was still before dawn and there was a knocking upon his door that had jarred him from a deep sleep, he wasn't in a position to give it much thought.

He would be impressed later on that he managed to pull himself into a sitting position; dragging himself from the bed was nothing short of a small miracle. He trudged with leaden feet to the door, blearily shrugging his arms into a shirt and fumbling with the buttons as he went. The clock on the wall, ticking away silently behind illuminated glass, told that it was just past five.

He'd expected Glitch, or perhaps the mutt, to be calling on him at this hour – never did he imagine that when he opened the door, he would be faced with the young queen. She offered him nothing, no smile or word of apology. She watched him with dark eyes, the shadows beneath them untouched. Hair unbound, dressing gown undone, and not an escort to be seen.

Cain stood back, and in she slipped, bare feet and all. He could almost have smiled. The door was barely closed behind her when she turned on him, those unfathomable eyes giving no hint of purpose. It was the twist of her lips, trembling and uncertain, that belied what dwelt within her, the same unrelenting turmoil that had devastated DG time and again – and which now plagued him to no end.

Azkadellia didn't seem ready to speak, seemed confused as to why she was there, why her feet had carried her to his door, so he gave her a moment. A little light would help them both, he knew, and so he turned on a lamp, chasing the thick darkness to linger as shadow at the edges of the room. It gathered in the corners like cobwebs, muted and clinging. Still, the soft glow of the lamp allowed him to see her face better, to try and gauge what it was that hid behind her reticence.

Just past five. Beyond the city walls, dawn would be staining the sky, but the dawn never came to Central City. Only when the suns rose over the hills that surrounded the city would the morning catch and glance off the towers and break the gloom on the streets below. And with all this rain –

"I woke you," Az said suddenly, intruding upon his thoughts of true morning, still hours off.

Pointlessly, he nodded. She gave him nothing else, just watched him, so heartbreakingly sympathetic and worried that he could have shouted. Instead, he said with as much patience as he could muster, "Can't tell me as to why I'm awake?"

A nervous smile flashed across her lips before falling out of favour. "I used to tell – forgive me, Mr. Cain, I've caused a great deal of trouble, haven't I?"

He remained still; with nothing to offer, what could he say?

"Gods," she muttered, and then laughed at herself. "May I –" Without waiting, she dropped herself into the closest chair, a show of effortless grace for all the abject relief that showed in her face. "It was never my intention to cause this grief, I hope you'll forgive me."

Twice in as many minutes, she'd asked his forgiveness. The thought rooted itself as a dull, faint throbbing in the back of his head, doomed to grow on him before this was over and done. "There's nothing to forgive," he said, touching his brow lightly with two fingers and closing his eyes.

"There is," she insisted. "I knew DG would find the witch. I sent her straight into this, you, and all the others, too."

"I wouldn't exactly have called that straight," Cain said, unclenching his jaw just long enough to get the words out.

"I knew DG would find the witch. I knew she was out there."

He opened his eyes to see the young queen smiling wryly at him. "How'd you know?"

"Bluesire managed to keep the sorceress out of the Midlings for nine annuals with the threat of Glinda's wrath," she said. "It was the only thing she ever baulked at – that, and DG. Five-years-old and DG was enough to scare her."

Cain thought back to their time in the woods of the eastern province, DG facing off with a general less than four-and-a-half feet tall, a man that still managed to have her quaking in her sneakers. That had been the night Cain had sat with her against an ancient sentinel pine and told her the story of her own damn fate, once upon a times and no place likes homes in all the proper places. Sometimes fabricated, mostly accurate.

They'd slept that night listening to the creaking of ropes and the wind rustling through the boughs that sheltered them. Here in Central City it was deadly quiet, and DG was gone. It weighed heavy, reminding him of his exhaustion; he crossed the room simply to move his limbs, to prove he wasn't trapped in a moment he couldn't escape. With one finger, he parted the curtains; the lights of the city shone white, gold, green in the darkness. The rain slipped down the glass in razor-thin streaks. Dawn still seemed a forever away.

"Is Lavender aware of what's happened?" Cain asked, not taking his eyes from the rainy night beyond the glass.

Azkadellia's hesitation was pronounced. "She will be before the day is out," was her response when it finally came, and the shame he'd seen in her came back full force. He wondered if she struggled as her sister did, and how deep and far it would carry her, that stubborn sense of responsibility over setting things to rights. All the empty words he'd ever said to DG came rushing to mind, but to speak them seemed unthinkable, to console Azkadellia a strange and ridiculous notion.

"There was no hope for your mother when we left," Cain said, leaning against the wall. He pinned back the curtain with his shoulder so that his view might be unhindered, no more lacy haze to hide behind. "What changed?"

"She just – just woke up," Azkadellia said, and her apparent amazement caused Cain to smirk at his reflection in the window. "Whatever had been weakening her, whatever caused her to sleep seemed to have forgotten about her, and she just slept, just lingered on the edge of – of something, I don't know, I don't understand." Her voice had lowered in pitch, her words had come slower, and he turned to glance at her only to see she'd dropped her head into her hands, hiding behind her long, dark hair. "And now DG is gone, and Mother is awake. She wakes and knows that something is wrong because she is awake, and demands to know what's happened, what did we do?"

Cain was silent. What did we do. Two little princesses. He sighed. And company.

Azkadellia continued on, each word spoken a strained effort. "Tutor – Mr. Lesley arrived hours before you did. From what he could tell me, and when I informed him of everything," and here she waved a hand dismissively toward the door and all that lay beyond it, "he said – it seems there's little doubt that the two events are related. Mother and DG. Within hours, he guesses, if not an hour, if not minutes, but it's no coincidence."

"And what about you?" Cain asked, looking over his shoulder again at the young queen. Her head was up, and she was looking at him, drawn back to this moment, this place. Ever lost in the past, no matter fifteen days or fifteen annuals; perhaps they two had that in common, though what bound them there made all the difference. All the difference in the world.

"Of course it's not a coincidence," Azkadellia said, trying her damnedest to be firm and almost succeeding. "But I don't see. I don't see why she had to go. It makes no sense."

He turned back to his reflection, and the city lights like stars beyond the sheets of rain. "I have a feelin' it'll make sense to your mother when she's told – if she doesn't know already."

A pause that went on too long followed, and then finally, "Why do you say that, Mr. Cain?"

He cleared his throat, wondering how in hell he was going to force this out. Words that needed to be said, doubtless, but there wasn't a part of him that wanted to be saying them. "Before we – left," he said, "your mother spoke to me about DG. Said a few things that didn't make a whole lot of sense – leastwise, not until DG up and –" He stopped short, swallowing the word 'vanished' away. "Said to me, 'She cannot go back'."

"Cannot go –"

"Took it to mean keep DG out of Central City, that bringing her back would lead to trouble," he said, closing his eyes against his guilt. "Turns out I was wrong."


There are some events in life that can be foreseen long before fate even sees fit to set a man's feet on a destined path. Inevitabilities, one might say, unavoidable collisions of circumstance. Eight annuals in an iron suit, an eternity caught in a single fragment of time, a torment that knew no beginning and no end, all leading to the moment when a hapless girl, lost and bewildered, was drawn to him by the tinny echo of his wife's desperate screams. No, he knew there were no coincidences. Each and every step taken, word spoken, mistake made as he'd walked the Old Road with DG and their companions, right to the very edge of the world, it all led to this doomed moment.

Cain stood outside the door to Lavender's rooms, waiting.

He'd been in Central City two full days, and the third had bled away into dusk before he'd been sought out, summoned, and now there he was, waiting, always waiting. He'd kept mostly to himself during those days, though there were those who had known where to find him if they were inclined to look. His son, Glitch, and Raw had all been so inclined at one point or another over the past two – damn it, almost three – days.

Jeb seemed in no hurry to get out of the city, and remained at the palace, quartered in the barracks with the household guard. Glitch was antsy, nervous; the unsolved problem at hand, namely the problem of DG, had him bothered and it was showing at the seams. Raw was due to leave soon, the girl's fate out of his hands; returning to his own village, the tension of the city nipping at his heels. It was not worry or doubt that Cain saw in the Viewer's face but relief, and in that he managed to take a great deal of comfort. He'd tried his best not to work out what it meant, exactly, for he found he enjoyed the vague sense of solace he'd managed to glean far too much to let the truth ruin it.

Now, however, standing alone in the wide hall outside Lavender's chambers, Cain wished he'd managed to glean a bit more than comfort from his friends over the past few days. A little courage, perhaps, to face all this, instead of allowing his feet to go where they would, out of the city and into the east to hide. His little cabin in the marshes, a quiet existence on the forgotten little swath of land that ran between the Midlings and the fields of the Papay.

Once, it had been easy to walk away. Easy to push himself away from her, easy to run from the light that she was determined to bring back into his life, no matter the resistance he'd put up. So he ran, back to the bleak grey nothingness of the world he knew. It was there that he could simply be, could stand and remember. To live in her world – even now, standing in the midst of these elegant surroundings, he had a hell of a time wrapping his head around it. What reason did he have to remain when even she herself had abandoned this life?

The door opened and he was left with no time to wonder why he'd waited this long to figure it out. He was beckoned inside by a young lady's maid, a girl cowed to silence by the sight of him. The meek little squeak she gave him upon opening the door was all he got out of her. The surreptitious glances cast back at him as he followed her through the sitting room and into the bedroom did little more than add to his frustration. It was all he could do to stop himself from giving the girl a good glaring as she bowed herself out of the room – he worked to keep his face expressionless as his eyes darted around the room he now found himself in, taking in what he could while he could.

He'd been there before, of course, and very little had changed. The curtains were thrown wide; the rain had let up, the light of the pale, cloudy day filtering in; the lamps were lit to cast their glow and were doing a very poor job of it. It was dismal in that room, unwelcoming, and to Cain it was yet another mark of how fate had cursed him, that he was made to stand there under the scrutiny of a small, sickly woman whom he'd wronged in a most inadvertent way. It was a consolation, strange and simple as it was, that he was not the first to stand before her, nor the second or third. That he was last to stand before her should have warned him, but looking back later on, he couldn't quite have been sure what he would need have been warned about. In truth, how could he have expected any less?

"Mr. Cain." Softly, so softly did she speak, her voice weak from disuse.

He bowed his head with what respect he could offer. "Your Grace." He met her eyes, and was startled to see how much the vivid lavender colour had faded. Shadow eyes, ghost eyes, unnerving. He didn't look away.

"I must admit, I'm surprised you've remained in the city," she said, and there was the scarcest curve to her lips, the faintest trace of a smile. Had he let slip just how much her observation annoyed him, because it seemed to be a popular one and he was damned tired of hearing it. "I had been given the impression that when you were called upon, you did not wish to be here. Why stay when the job is finished?"

"Situation changed," was all he could say, and even then, it felt as though it were too much. Too open and too honest, too easy for her to see all that those two little words could encompass. To look away would be to confess it all: the coldness DG had greeted him with to mask the hurt she'd still felt, the nights he'd sat with her in silence to reassure her with nothing but his presence, that first quiet kiss in the dust of the ruin, the second kiss under the stars that had near stolen what little reservation had remained to him. Situation changed, he'd said.

Her smile widened slightly. "An understatement, wouldn't you agree, Mr. Cain? The situation has grown very dire indeed."

He knew better than to answer. He waited while she watched him, perhaps looking for confirmation of all she'd suspected long before this, and it was only when she was satisfied that a certain amount of very uncomfortable minutes had passed that she continued. "Please do not worry yourself. If I had been more direct with my daughters, it is doubtless that this entire mess could have been avoided. Our children, no matter how old and wise they think they've grown, never truly see that what we do is in their best interests."

Cain smirked, couldn't help it. "Keepin' the ones you're trying to protect in the dark could have something to do with it."

"Perhaps," Lavender conceded, "or perhaps the truth would have moved them to faster action. Thoughtless action."

Once again, Cain kept his tongue firmly in his head, though he couldn't for the life of him come up with something more reckless than what Azkadellia had devised, a plan that DG had carried out so successfully. Seeing Lavender back from the brink of death with his own eyes, even he couldn't deny that DG had succeeded in all that she'd set out to accomplish. But even he could not resolve himself to this end justifying her means. His feelings for her would not allow it of him.

"I had hoped that you would be able to keep DG here," she said, leaning back against her pillows. "The affection between the two of you was a poorly kept secret, but it was still yours to keep. I had hoped to exploit that, and I hope you'll forgive that of me, Mr. Cain."

"I don't see what that –"

"I had thought that, perhaps, if you and my daughter were able to reconcile, it would keep her in Finaqua," Lavender said, almost dreamily. More and more as the minutes passed, her voice became weighted with effort and exhaustion. She turned those tired, pale eyes on him. "She would have been safe there, if you'd stayed; you would be there and I would be gone."

"You knew the girl wasn't willin' to let you go," he said.

Lavender nodded. "I didn't want her to have the choice. I did not want her to make that sacrifice."

"And yet here we are," he said, impatient now and not even bothering to swallow it back.

"Neither you or I could protect her from herself, Mr. Cain," she said with another weak smile. "I have never been able to protect my girls from themselves." She sighed, and let her eyes slip closed, sinking back farther into the pillows supporting her. So fragile, evanescent; it was no surprise to him that only the intervention of magic had bound her to her life. Long minutes ticked away in which he stood anchored and still, wondering if she was done with him, if he could walk out and keep walking, when she asked him, still heavy-lidded and peaceful, "Do you know why I sent my daughter to the Other Side after the Sorceress killed her?"

"No," he said, biting back a growl. Damn it, he wasn't there to wade through a lifetime of this woman's regrets.

"She couldn't stay, my DG," she said, turning her head and looking out one of the large windows at the grey world outside. "There were – allies of our family over the desert who could have fostered her. Those who would have kept her hidden and safe. It would have been easy to smuggle her out of Qhoyre on a sandship. It was Astor who stopped me."

Cain frowned. "The Mystic Man?"

Lavender nodded, not taking her gaze from the window. What she saw beyond the tinted glass, he couldn't guess. "He refused to approach his contacts on our behalf. Once he'd felt the light in DG, and discovered what I'd done. He didn't understand, but had no child, how could he? But he made it very clear that I did not understand what I'd done, either."

Cain could have almost smiled then, thinking of this silver-haired, soft-spoken woman facing off with that hard-headed, loud-mouthed old man. He imagined her telling him he was wrong, and the sly grin that would have come to his face, the twinkle in his eye that would always win out when he was told he was wrong. The man was never wrong, and knew it.

He realised that Lavender, while not looking at him was still waiting for a response. "It was his idea to send DG to the Other Side, then."

"Complete and utter separation. Severance. She would leave this world so that I might remain in it."

The meaning of her words descended slowly on Cain as he tried to make sense of what he'd been told, what he'd known, what he'd guessed at. He knew nothing of magic, but for what he'd seen from the girl. The Mystic Man had been a scholar, the most learned man the O.Z. had known for generations, yet he was no wizard. He held no true power. His gift lay in knowledge, in the wisdom and experience gained by him over his long years of freedom before Azkadellia had tightened his leash. That Lavender had sought his council after she'd given up her Light to save DG did not surprise Cain in the least.

"My daughter was too young to face her sister. She was untrained, defenceless." Lavender looked at him then, and the sorrow burning in her eyes near took his breath away. "I struggled with no power as the darkness in my Azkadellia grew, until she was all but consumed. That she claimed the throne as her own was inevitable. That she did not kill me – well, I will never know by what grace I was granted such a reprieve. I should not have been. Nine annuals I lingered on the edge of existence. Time stood still, and yet nine annuals passed."

He cut her off, never mind that he should have been holding his tongue. He did not need to hear of the torture of being stuck in a moment in time while the rest of the world marched on without you. "Why tell me this?" he asked, his voice steadier than he felt, for her words had shaken him to the core. "It's DG that you should have told this to. The war's been over for almost a year. The kid deserves to know."

"How would you tell your child that they are slowly killing you, and there is nothing that can be done to stop it?"

Cain had no reply. Anger was boiling in the pit of his stomach, the guilt he'd felt a distant memory in the face of truth. These words were not meant for his ears, and yet he listened because Lavender had chosen him. He forced himself to look away from the wilting woman propped up in her bed, the woman who watched him so beseechingly.

"There was a way to stop it," he finally bit out. "It never crossed your mind she'd go over your head to do it?"

Lavender frowned, and there was far less warmth in her voice when she said, "Did it cross my mind that a far greater power would grant such a request to a child? No, it did not. Nor did I think my DG find her at all, let alone in time." She softened as she shook her head, turning her head once again to the window, and the day outside that she'd never expected to see.

He looked away, unprepared to watch her struggle with her sorrow. Instead, he took a moment to choose his next words carefully, weighing out all that was on his mind and finding that, in spite of his anger, his frustration and disbelief, to put it all on this woman would be a great injustice.

"Seems to me then," he said slowly,"that we're both fools, underestimating DG like we did." He smirked at the absurdity of it.

"It would appear so," she agreed, but there was no strength in her now, no focus. The truth and all it implicated had left her drained, and it left him almost unbearably sad. Never, never could he imagine that DG had left her mother to drown in her disappointment and regret.

Damn it, darlin', you need to get back here and set this right.

Sensing she was finished, he turned away. As he reached the bedroom door, she called his name.

"Speak with Azkadellia, Mr. Cain, arrange what needs to be done. I hope that I've underestimated you as well. Please, bring DG home."


Author's Note: Thank you to all the people reading, reviewing, and adding this story to their Favourites and Alerts. My most 'alerted' story ever. Thanks again, all my lovelies. You make a girl feel special.