Feiron, that was his name. The name of my betrothed. The elf that was ripped asunder on that faithful night I was stationed on watch duty. From the safety of my tree, I was ordered to stay put. His final order to me before he drew his last breath. I obeyed and lived.

We've known each other since we were young, as children running free in the woods, playing hide and seek, pretend-fighting with sticks. From dawn till dusk, we ran, laughed, and lived free from worry. He was my best friend. He crowned me his princess and he was my knight.

When we got older, we trained together for the guard. We were competitive and fierce. I loved him like a brother. The only love I've ever known. In time I had hoped my feelings would be of another kind, as his were for me. He was my safe haven, the scent of home when we marched to war. He was my mountain when the world shattered around us.

I thought I lost him when fire rained down on us, but the dense smoke of ruin could not keep us apart. Feiron found me. Found my broken body, and when I healed, he asked me to marry him. I accepted. He was my knight.

---

"Wargs?! You got wargs?!" I shout, my voice's pure flint.
"Malwen," Adar says. "Let me..."
I cut him off, his mouth growing taut. "I thought I was losing my sanity! That day, after the riot, when I was being carried off to this camp, weak and recovering, I saw large, vicious paw prints... My mind drifted... Uruks muttered; 'Why didn't Adar let them loose, they could have ended it in an instant. Them slaves deserve to be torn apart...' All this time you've been hiding the fact that you've been keeping wargs down in the tunnel, at the outskirts of this camp. The times you went away, down there and out here, to check on something. You went to see them, didn't you?" I run a hand through my untied hair trying to summate the facts before me.
"How long have you had them... How long have they been running wild... How..." Realization dawns on me. "It was you, wasn't it? You let them loose that night. It was your wargs!" My eyes widen, seeing red.

"Malwen," Adar says again. "Please...."
I turn on my heel, entering our tent to get my things. I strap my dagger to my thigh, clasping a bone corset around my waist. I shake with rage, my fingers unable to fasten the damn corset. Adar steps towards me, hands outstretched to help. I slap them away. "Don't touch me," I growl at him, letting the corset hang loosely around my waist while I gather my other weapons. I arm myself, the comfort of my blades a soothing balm against my trembling body.

I stare at Adar as I shove a small dagger down my boot. In my filthy fervor for this twisted alpha, I've been blind. The dead bodies outside the tunnel, fallen from fatigue, they were gone the next day, not left to rot; they had been fed to the wargs. Probably the same wargs that...
"Where are they?" I gnarl, stalking past him, and tearing the flap of the tent open.
"Malwen, no," I hear Adar say behind me.
I don't stop to hear him out. Instead, I start running. I run through the camp, putting as much distance between Adar and me as possible. I need space to think, to let the anger simmer through my veins, I need to see with my own eyes if they are his wargs. If I see that one warg...

I hear footsteps behind me. I know he's following me, but I keep on running. I see Sorogrim, but I only offer him a curt glare as I sprint by. He looks concerned, his eyes darting over my shoulder to Adar following close behind. "Lord Father?" I hear Sorogrim ask, worry coating his voice. I shut them out, my heart beating hard and loud, fury carrying my legs like feathered wings of wrath, the shadow assassin awoken from its slumber, though she's been latent all this time. Ready to stab, twist, and gut.

I make it to the outskirts of the camp, to the cages built to hold beasts. Iron and wood twisted into temporary prisons. I hear them growl, snapping their maws; knowing a fiend is heading their way. If these creatures don't know what nightmares are, I will paint them a bloody picture as I gut them one by one. I will skin them. Slowly. I want to cut them into tiny pieces. I want to set fire to the lot and watch them burn. I reach for the fire-stone in my pocket. I'm just about to strike it against my dagger to conjure fire, but stop. It's too good for them. I want to take my time. I want to carve their beastly hearts out and step on them. I want to smell their fear. I want them to know that I, an elf, will be the end of them.

I grab the bars on one of the cages. The warg in it looks at me with black eyes, foaming at the mouth. I snarl at it, holding out my dagger. I want it to get close enough so I can see the life force leave it as I drive my blade home. "Come here," I tease.
"Malwen, no!" I hear Adar shout behind me.
"Leave! You don't want to see this!" I shout.
"To watch my beloved Mordo Nehtar turn into a soulless monster? No, you're right I do not want to see that," Adar says.
He's right behind me now, I can feel his warmth, and his presence is calming the wargs.
"I thought you already knew; the Shadow Assassin is a monster. I am a monster. I kill for the sake of killing. I watch death unfold before my eyes. I have become death. I claim lives seeking vengeance. And what I want is retribution for the lives lost before I became a katala."
"I'm the monster," Adar says. "And I will not see you suffer the same fate."
"You're not a monster. You're misunderstood. Your fate's twisted, but it wasn't your choice. Besides, it's too late for me. I suffered long before I met you. My agony turned me into this," I turn around to face him, seething with rage. "If you do not want to see this, then turn and leave. I will not stop till they're all dead."
"Then kill me, I sent them," Adar looks at me, his face somber.
"No," I say sternly. "My company did not die by your hand."
"But they did die by my command." Adar squares his shoulders.
"No," I say again. "I will not kill you. My strife is with these beasts!" I turn to look at the wargs, looking for that one in particular. I can't find it. It must be the warg that has not yet returned. "It does not matter," I mutter to myself, clutching my fingers around the bars of a cage once again. "I will have your blood." The last sentence is directed at the warg looking right at me, ready to pounce. I want it to come at me. I want to rip the door off its hinges and have it out in the open.

Adar comes about me from behind, embracing me in a firm grip, dragging me away from the cage. He's steering my anger away from the wargs, sacrificing himself, taking my rage to save these vile beasts. But they're not beasts to him.
I roar in anger, kicking like a savage animal in his grasp. "Let me go!" I claw at him, pleading with him to release me, but he holds me fast.
He croons against my ear, trying to soothe me. I will not have it, finally breaking free of his grasp. I smack him hard across the face. The look he gives me is a mix of hate and hurt. All I feel is maddening fury. I mean to smack him again, but his spiked gauntlet catches my wrist, gripping it tightly. I can hear my bones crushing. I try to strike him with my other hand, but he's too quick. He's got me in his clutches. My whole body throbbs with wrath and want. I want to kill him, something, someone, I want... In my haze of hatred, I can only see red, my mind encompassed with bloodlust.

Before I can plan my next move, he's wrestling me down onto the ground, sitting down astride me, cinching me between his muscular thighs. He grabs my face with both hands, crushing his lips against mine. He kisses me ferociously. I mewl at the turmoil of chaos he stirs within me. I bite his lip hard, tasting blood. He raises his head away from me, the look on his face is lethal, and I know he mirrors my own look. Black blood drips from his lip, making him look like a ferocious hellion. We're both vile, vile creatures.
"I hate you," I yell at him, a sob breaking free from my crazed being.
"Hate me all you like, Malwen," Adar says, his eyes fixed on my face. "I'm the reason why you are what you are. I might be twisted and tortured, but so are you, by me, by a command I ushered long ago. I ruined you. I've been defiling you even before we met."
I manage to battle him off me, getting up into a fighting stance, and preparing to jump him. And once he's on his feet, I do. I jump up, wrapping my legs around him, my hands around his neck. He does not stagger, just grabbing me hard. I tug at his hair, tilting his head back. I bite his neck. He growls, his gloved hand tearing at my shirt. I feel his iron claw slice my skin. I scream in anger, pulling his hair harder. Black blood runs down his long neck. He smashes me against the cages, the wargs snarling behind us. I manage to land a blow to his head, crying out in utter outrage. 
"Enough!" he roars back, his voice dark and booming.

We're both panting hard, our rapid breathing and the growling of the wargs the only sounds. Adar looks at my face still contorted into cruel malice. "I can only imagine how feral you must have looked in the forest slaying my children; how terrible and terrifyingly beautiful you must have been wielding your weapons. You got darkness in you, Malwen. It runs deeper than the common purpose of elves to protect, you're drawn to it. And it led you to me."
I look at the black blood still seeping from his lip and neck. I did that to him. I hit him. I shouted I hate him. I wanted to kill him. I start to cry, tears streaming down my face.
Adar puts me down, stepping away from me.
"Did I hurt someone you love?" he asks.
"You... You killed someone I loved." I sob. "Someone I tried to love. Someone who tried to love me back; did love me back, more than I ever deserved. He was good, too good for me, and so pure. I could never measure up to him and his standards, but I loved him in my own way, trying to be my best self around him." I wipe at my tears, but they keep coming, the floodgates are open, and through them flows the sorrowful truth about my past buried deep within. "The fact is, my best self is depraved. You know that; you knew it the minute we met. I was so far fallen from grace, even before I lost him. And after his demise, darkness sought me out, the touch of evil caressing me in the lonely hours of the night. I was tempted and granted it access on my terms. But it was starting to consume me, and that's when I failed. That's when I was captured. And brought before you."
Adar takes a step towards me, sensing I won't come at him.
"I thought I knew love when I was with him, but the only things I've ever truly known are violence and pain. Until you." I look at him through tear-stained eyes, my vision blurry. He reaches for me, but I back away. "I do not deserve your touch." I swallow hard. "I don't deserve you at all."

Adar's standing still, looking at me, taking in my every word.
"I knew him my whole life," I start saying. "I've known you for only a few short months. I did love him, but not the way I love you." Guilt is eating me up inside. Feiron died trying to save me, commanding me to stay at my post so I could live. Live and become a monster. To become a fiend, and fall in love with another fiend.
"I'm touched by darkness, just like you. Like calls to like. You took away the one good thing I had in my life, and for that I hate you. But my love for you is so much stronger than my hate, and I will forgive you if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. For hurting you."
"Malwen, you reminded me I have a heart," Adar says softly. "The day we met I was blinded by hatred when I came to interrogate you, but as I lifted the gauze to enter your confinement, the veil before my eyes also lifted. I could see, and I saw you, and the way you looked at me. That's why I couldn't kill you. Your eyes cried out with despair, and I wanted so badly to make you forget your pain, to make you cry out your darkest desires instead. And when you did, your conflicted screams telling me to stop even though you wanted me to keep going, you enticed a feeling of longing I've not felt in ages. You cried because I unraveled you, and you felt shame because you let me. Oh, Malwen, my beloved Mordo Nehtar. In your heart lies fire and shadow. I will create a world where we both can thrive. Where we both shall thrive. Together, touched by darkness in a land of darkness." Adar takes another step towards me. This time when he reaches for me, I let him caress me. I let him place a hand on my cheek, wiping my tears away.
"What was his name?" Adar asks.
"Feiron," I whisper. It feels strange voicing his name, I have not uttered it in forever. "I know now that I was never meant to love him. I was meant to love a hurricane, someone who would ravage me off my feet and mix his turmoil with mine. A storm of desire and destruction. You're my tempting tempest. Where you blow, I will follow. If you'll still have me."
"I will have your wrath, your ruin, your dark, and your light. If your best self is depraved, I will still worship you till the world ends. You don't ever have to pretend with me. I will take your rage over hidden lies. You might strike and stab me as long as you don't break my heart." Adar cups my face in his hands. "By asking me whether or not I'll still have you, you quenched my biggest fear; if you'd leave me once you found out that I keep wargs, that I was the one that sent them hunting and killed your company. I robbed you of companionship, of your connection to your home, and cut your heartstrings trying to know love. I sent my wargs into the night, and you emerged a creature formed by my action, a shadow of death."
"I would never leave you, I'd rather die," I state. "But if you really do love me, grant me this one death. Grant me my vengeance. Let me kill the warg that still hasn't returned. She is waiting for me in the forest. Let me cast my shadow and stalk among the trees. Let me hunt."

Adar sighs, his face growing gloomy.
"I know they're not beasts to you," I say to him. "To you, they have names and hearts, but I cannot accept them the same way I've accepted your children. To me, the wargs are monsters, inhabited by evil, and though you have tamed their maliciousness to your will and work, I cannot rest until at least one of them is slayed by my blade."
Adar doesn't let go of my face, just peering into my eyes. "If you need to do this to know inner peace again, to let the past finally lie, I will not stand in your way. The choice to kill is yours. But know this; Scara still lives because she is stealthy. She slays with calculated accuracy. She will kill."
I take a deep breath. In my fogged fury, I've been blind to the fact that I might not survive my thirst to terminate a plague from my past. My company died, and Feiron died. But we were ambushed. I'm wide awake and hellbent on retaliation. I will survive Scara.
I place my hands on top of Adar's, tears forming in my eyes yet again. "I love you," I whisper. "You've accepted my shadow, but you cannot contain it. I must go."
"I would never dream to contain you in any way, just your love, in my heart. That I will not let go."
"It's yours to keep," I press my lips to his mouth. "Forever."
We kiss deeply. It feels so final, but I've made my choice. The past must die, and I will kill it.

---

I step away from Adar, backing away into the forest. Adar looks strong, yet shattered. He gives me a vague nod. I turn my back to him, to my light of light, embracing the awaiting darkness once more.