Written for QLFC, round 3. Chaser 1: Write about the Truth leading to a death OR write about a Dare saving someone's life (I chose the former) Team: Appleby Arrows Optional prompts: (color) midnight black, (flavour) cinnamon, (sound) screaming

Word Count: 1418

Trigger warning: canonical death and suicide. Tragedy.

Many thanks to Sophy, Lexi, and Jade for beta'ing :)

"Do not strive for something that was not given to you, lest your disappointed expectations lapse into discontent."

Aesopus

~ What is Death's ~

Cadmus had been sitting and staring at the black stone for hours now, his head between his hands, thoughts and doubts twirling in his head, overlapping, colliding. He felt thrown into the sea in a storm with nothing to hold on except for this stone that, no matter how small, could as well drag him down like the largest of boulders. But the waves of pain his heart had been tossed by since his fiancée's death were just as scary and cold as the doubt-filled ones that tormented his head.

Hoping he would not come to regret his decision, he reached for the Deathly Hallow in front of him, letting it float over his palm, and he turned it over three times, his hand trembling, a fluttering sensation in his chest.

Closing his eyes and holding his breath, he waited. For a cry, a word, a whisper, a breeze.

Nothing happened.

Instead, he felt something bitter—resignation mixed with betrayal—scratching his guts as he struggled to accept the truth; he had been deceived.

He had dreamt about this moment and it had always felt so vivid that he could almost feel his betrothed's soft skin beneath his fingertips and smell her sweet scent.

It had been in vain.

He shivered, any warmth lost since Adelma had died. She'd always been his spring.

He slowly forced his eyes open, and when they regained their focus, it was not an empty room they were met with but a flickering figure of a dark-haired woman in a white gown, the same she had been buried with. She looked as full of life as he remembered, the only reminder of her death being her once red, now pale lips.

The apparition seemed to enlighten the room, and her smile restored Cadmus's hope so much that he felt burning—oh, how he had missed her fire!

Adelma.

"My beloved," Cadmus whispered, swallowing. Astonishment bordering on disbelief filled him and he needed to know he could trust his eyes.

"Cadmus, my eternal love, I didn't think we would find each other again so soon," she said, a relieved tinkle in her voice.

Cadmus, his heart lighter and singing in happiness, moved closer to her.

"I'm happy I could see you. There were so many things left unspoken," she said, taking a slight step back. "Things that may have looked obvious but should have been said aloud; I love you—"

"That I know," he reassured her.

She smiled again. "I've loved you since the first moment I saw you."

"I remember that day like it was yesterday. If I lived to be a hundred, I wouldn't forget it. It was the first day of spring and you were having a walk with your lady in waiting wearing a pale green dress, a blue flower chain crown in your hair."

"Myosotises," she confirmed. "Forget-me-not's."

"Your scent," he said, "was warm and spicy. Exotic."

"Cinnamon. It helped diminishing—" She hesitated, unwilling to bring up any subject related to her death. "—the headaches. My Lady Mother had discovered its beneficial properties and that Phoenixes build their nest from it. She used to say it was a good omen."

"It was!" Cadmus could barely refrain his enthusiasm. "It was. You are here, are you not?"

As they were talking, he had been getting closer to the young Lady, but he still dared not touch or even brush her. She looked so ethereal and delicate that he found himself bowing his head in reverence.

"I desired our marriage for so long. I'll never forgive myself for deceasing before I could resign my family name and become Lady Peverell. It was my highest and dearest wish." She watched him, love and nostalgia in her eyes. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, my dearest. The only important thing is that I could see you, speak to you, smile with you one last time."

"Last?" Cadmus's head suddenly snapped up as he felt something inside of him break.

She seemed to regret her choice of words. "Cadmus." She cleared her voice then she said, "I don't belong to—"

He didn't want to hear it. "You, you belong with me," he stated. "I don't care what anyone may say. I'll love and cherish you for all eternity. You won't regret it. Just stay with me, Lady Peverell. There's no one else who'd deserve that title."

He looked as temptation gave her a blaze of life, some color reaching her cheeks, her hair glowing as brown as mahogany.

A frustrated sigh escaped from her lips, and it felt like a tornado to Cadmus who felt pushed back by it. It had always been like that; every scolding sound coming from Adelma had always been louder than a thousand screaming voices, echoing in his ears for a long time.

She had always been his light.

"Don't ask me to. Don't lead me into temptation. It would just break both our hearts more and more until they'll be too shattered to be mended. You're clever and a Wizard. You—we both—know there's no way. You can't bring back what Death's claimed. My heart's sung at seeing you, and staying by your side would be my greatest wish—it's always been—but I can't reach you, I can't cross the barrier between you and me, the living and the dead."

Deaf to her pleading and reasoning, he reached forward trying to take her hand, but when his fingers closed, they only touched his own chilled palm. A shiver ran through his spine as he realized why he hadn't felt cold since he had summoned her; warmth escaped her, becoming more concentrated in the rest of the room.

Surprise and denial, pain and desperation crashed down on him.

"My love, my love," she said, her voice lenient. "Please. This is the bitter truth. When I felt the call, I hoped that maybe you were dreaming again, that I could shield you from yet another mourning. Forgive me for being the one who—" Her voice broke. "Please. Fare me well, and let me depart." Unshed tears had been gathering in her eyes.

"Adelma," he pleaded, shooking her head. No, no, no!

"I—" She looked unsure once more. "I can't stay. Please, please."

He looked at her intently. Then he clearly felt something inside of him shift as a sinister light entered his eyes. "Very well, my beloved," he said coldly. "Clearly, that's what you want as there's indeed no way you could come back to life. No way... But had you been more reasonable, we could still have had a chance. To be together. To be happy."

Her face had lost its color once again.

"You could have left me basking in my delusion—I wouldn't have touched you—yet you opened my eyes, adding to my pain. I'll accept it, I'll accept your truth about you being unable to stay."

"Even if I had stayed, we could have been able to only talk to each other," she said. "Y-you saw it. It would have been all f-fake." She was crying.

He felt guilt and sorrow arising in his chest. "It would have been enough—more than enough, my Adelma. It hurts me that you think it wouldn't. Anything I have with you could never be fake. But it doesn't matter. I'm able to fix this. You were wrong; truthful but wrong. There's a way, the most perfect one."

She shook her head, fear entering her eyes. "No!" she cried. "This is not right. You can't—"

He wasn't listening to her anymore. "Perfect, perfect. We won't be separated anymore. Perfect. See you later, my Adelma. Mine," he said.

He crossed the room and opened the closet where he kept his weapons. It was easy; he just reached out and without hesitation, he took the rope.

Adelma screamed.

.

As the noose started to tighten, he saw an ominous glow coming from the stone and a midnight black shadow pouring into the room. There was something sinister and pleased in the way it crept, a scent of putrefaction following it.

(Coming to claim him.)

A chill ran down his spine as the dawning realization came that he had just damned himself.

He uselessly kicked his legs in the air.

(Too late.)

He had played right into Death's hands.

(He won't see Adelma ever again.)

Death's evil laugh and his own desperate screams were the last thing he heard.

(Cadmus doesn't know, but the sound of screaming will be reverberating in his ears for all eternity. His own, others people's; who cares? They are all at my mercy now.)