The initial question pushes him down deeper, the typical unkindness he's come to expect only confirming what he already knows. Although at times crying makes a person feel better, at the moment Cade was only feeling a terrible dullness, the wound reaching too deeply to ever find relief, even after it was purged of some of its surface malignance.

Slowly, exhaustedly, he nods to Zevran. Another question he has been asked many times. "When I fight," he rasps, his voice hoarse from the strain, "...but I don't fight anymore." So, problem solved, everyone can go home.