A new dawn, a new day. I wake with a smile on my face. Last night was amazing. Just thinking about Adar makes my toes curl, and my lower half tensing up with want. I ache for him immediately. I want to kiss him, touch him, lay against his pale, naked skin, and feel his rough hands exploring my curves, his eyes admiring me like an artist would a painting. 

I know I must look like a constant mess, my hair always a little tangled, my skin never fully clean, working outside during the day and tumbling about with an Uruk at night, but I feel so alive. I was mere embers when we met, now I'm stoked to an undying fire, and together we will burn the earth.  

---

My chains are looser than ever, and I can easily twist free my hands if I need to, but I wear them for show. Adar noticed the red, irritated skin around my wrists some while ago, and since I'll be staying with him at the next camp, he's been easing up the pressure little by little, always reluctant to put them back on. He's just waiting for me to spill crimson blood and claim my place beside him. To have his Uruks call me by my name, and to show respect to his heart's chosen one. Then I will wear no more bonds, just the unbreakable one between us. 

I take a last look around my confinement, at the traces left all around made out of wild want by Adar and me; The claw marks on the earthen wall, the imprint of my back against the dirt, his big hand marking the soil, the slashed roots from his spiky gauntlet. I take in the savage scent of sin. This is where he enthralled me into his service. This is where I will leave my light behind. 

I watch the broken clasp dangling from the beam, the oval dent on the ground from the wash basin, and the flimsy gauze hanging on for dear life in the alcove's doorway. With a smirk on my face, I start to gather my few belongings and shove them into a sack, tying it shut with a string. My mind is full of wanton memories as I wait in my dirty den for further orders.

---

Sorogrim comes to fetch me, and I'm brought outside, my mood rapidly changing. I stand ramrod straight, overseeing what I know will happen shortly. I've been acting detached ever since I started working on the tunnel alongside the other prisoners, trying to demonstrate I cannot help, but the women and men would not hear it, to acknowledge that I won't fight. That I can't fight. All I can do is to give them a fair chance to break free. I know it will only end in slaughter, but not because I told Adar and the Uruks about the scheming I've heard. No, I owe these people my silence. To let them try to do what they must. They might have a home to get back to or dreams of somewhere new, but I don't belong anywhere. All I know is that I can't ever leave Adar. I'm his, body and soul.  

A woman named Leyla gives me a faint nod, and I inhale sharply, knowing the attack's about to begin. I know their desperate courage will only bring death, and all I can do is watch. 

The slaves don't start to riot one by one but in unison. Whatever tactic they thought they'd cleverly planned vanishes, and I see their frantic looks while trying to break free. I watch the Uruks cut the weak warriors down, though some of the Uruks fall too. Faugh goes down, and I feel a pang of guilt. I could have stopped this. I could have... Done something. 

The fight moves closer to where I'm standing.
"Malwen," Layla screams before she's stabbed in the back, blood spluttering from her mouth. Sorogrim looks at me. "You knew," he roars. "You unfaithful liar!"
"No, I didn't lie!" I start to hurriedly explain. "I just didn't tell anyone about it. You don't see me fighting with them, do you? I'm with you," I state.
Sorogrim looks doubtful, and don't blame him. I could have prevented this. 

Suddenly Adar arrives, and my heart starts to pound wildly in my chest. He looks at the riot, searching. Searching for me. He spots me, a look of relief crossing his face. He steps closer, grabbing a desperate man trying to attack him by the throat, slamming him hard into the ground, breaking him. Five men start to close in on Sorogrim and me, and I know I deserve to die. I don't care who kills me, I've wronged them all. Sorogrim blocks a blow aimed at me, and I'm stunned.
"How can you just stand there?" one of the men shouts at me before his throat is slit by a passing Uruk. I watch the man fall, clutching his throat, blood gushing between his fingers. I can because I must, I think to myself. 

A more skilled man targets Sorogrim, who's busy fighting against two others. The man's makeshift knife is about to find its mark, but Sorogrim turns just in time to see me block the blow, being cut instead. I know the rage on the man's face must mirror my own when I killed the Uruks in the forest; Sorogrim's sister. I killed in cold blood, and now I stand with the corrupted spawn of Middle Earth. 

Adar shouts, getting my attention, throwing me his dagger. I snarl at the man that stung me. He's viewing me with abhor. I know he's beholding a monster as I attack him, Adar's dagger striking hard and true. The man falls to the ground, blade poking from his chest, an ended life flowing dark red beneath my feet. 

I look at Adar, my eyes wide and wild. He nods once, an air of profound pride about him. Only blood can bind. I've proven myself, to him and his children, but I feel like a fraud; I came here to free these people, not to kill them. Never in my long life did I expect to fall for a son of the dark, to let my wanton heart get so utterly entwined with his twisted one. Yet here I am, at the end of my final choice; Staring into the eyes of my dark keeper, welcoming the aftermath of fate.  

--- 

The fight starts to die down, and men and women lie bleeding all around. A few survived, and a few surrendered, accepting defeat once and for all. The surviving prisoners glare at me with disdain, and I can only imagine how Adar must feel constantly being looked upon like that. But it's also a sort of power to have people looking at you like you're a vile villain and to live up to it. I should feel bad about my atrocious action, but I only feel free. The light and dark inside me battled, and I arose a warrior worthy of Adar. It's the only prize I need.

A wave of exhaustion suddenly hits me, and I sway on my feet. With the adrenaline fading from my fighting form, I feel the sting of the stab wound the man I killed served me. I hardly manage to grab my bleeding side before I collapse, warm blood seeping freely through my fingers.

Adar's panic-stricken roar is the last thing I hear before the world fades to black. 

---

He scoops her up into his arms, bellowing orders, Sorogrim following close behind.
"She saved me, Lord Father," he says. "We must save her in return." 
Adar brings her inside the tunnel. Most of the Uruks' supplies have been packed, but a cloth, thread, and a ragged needle are being handed to him soon enough.
"Water," he instructs while putting a hand on her forehead. She's burning up. The man's makeshift knife was crafted from stolen Uruk scraps. She's been severely infected.
Adar rips at her shirt to get a better look at the cut, a low "No" escaping his mouth at the sight before. He tries to stanch the bleeding, compressing the wound. She's been slashed in her right rib cage, her pale, delicate skin gaping at him like a taunting grin. He's so mad with rage at the riot that erupted he wants to gut the remaining prisoners himself. After all the hard, long hours of toil these people have been put through day after day, they still had it in them to defy him and his Uruks. Didn't the slain elves put an end to their hope? 

Sorogrim hands him a bowl of water and Adar cleans the cut. "Hand me the lit torch, I need to burn the needle before I stitch her back together. Here, hold her wound tightly."
Sorogrim washes his hands as best he can before placing them on the fierce, yawning gash. He watches as Adar threads the needle and starts to mend her flesh close. He can hear her breath becoming ragged, and a deep shiver of terror runs through his body. "No!" Adar yells this time, not willing to accept her fate. "Malwen, no!" If only he could... He can, and he will, darkness be damned. He places his hand on her run-up wound, starting to chant.
Sorogrim backs away, fear written across his face. This is no black speech or words he's ever heard uttered by his Lord Father before. This is a part of Adar he does not know. 

Adar's holding one hand on her forehead, the other on her injury, which has stopped bleeding, but her breath's still jagged. He keeps chanting, tears lining his eyes. He thinks of her genuine laugh from last night, how it reverberated through his soul. He thinks of her moans, the pleasure he's been able to give her. The pleasure she's given him. How he can't stop thinking about her when she's not around, how much she's come to mean to him. "Tul-nanda-nna ni," he says whisper-soft. Come back to me. 

---

I gasp, surfacing from whatever black water I've been dragged under. From somewhere far away from where I was going, I heard a voice. A soft, yet desperate voice telling me not to give in, to come back to him. Adar. 

I open my eyes and stare right into his misty ones. He's got the same look on his face as when he put one of his children out of their suffering. He could have done the same to me.
"Heru," my mouth is dry and my voice sounds like cracked tree bark.
"Malwen," he whispers gently. "I thought I'd lost you."
"I heard you," I say. "You called me to you. You... You saved me." I cough, and Adar brings a flask to my mouth.
"Drink, Mordo Nethar." He holds me in his arms. "You saved one of my children, you've proven your loyalty. You belong with us now. With me." He caresses my face, tracing the calloused tips of his fingers along my jawline.
My eyes fill with tears, and I put my hand over his. "I could have stopped it, I could have prevented the riot from ever happening," I stutter.
"What do you mean?" he asks.
"I heard them plotting, I knew when and where," I swallow hard. I have to tell him. I've just sworn my loyalty to him, to his legion. I can't start my service carrying a secret.
Adar's eyes darken. He looks up, searching for Sorogrim. He calls the Uruk to him. "Is this true? Did she know?" he inquires.
Sorogrim looks at Adar, at me, and then back to his commander. "Yes, Lord Father, she knew about the revolt."
Adar intense gray-green eyes are fixed on me, thoughts churning around in his mind, trying to grasp the predicament.
"I wanted to save them; I was captured because I tried to rescue them. I just wanted to give them a fighting chance. It was my final stand before I lost myself to you forever." I'm crying now. "When that man came for Sorogrim... Came for my friend... I did not hesitate. I killed one of the people I came to free. For you. I'm yours." 

---

Adar shakes his head in despair looking at the weakened she-elf in his arms. He should be mad, at least disappointed, but he can't bring himself to be infuriated with her. She came back to him. He pleaded with the light to deliver her into his darkness. He knows the conflict she must have been battling; her imprinted glorified beliefs of freedom and prosperity for the peoples of Middle Earth, her trained aversion towards his kind. Even he sent an elf with a warning to the people of Tirharad, to the people that might want to seek refuge in the watchtower. Adar knows the warning will lead to the death of some of his children. War claims lives on both sides. 

She's staring up at him, awaiting her doom. He looks at her tear-stained face, feeling her beating heart beneath his palm, her breath becoming stronger. She's the Shadow Assassin, and he's done what he set out to do from the moment he saw her; he's defiled her beautiful being, and her past beliefs, and made her wholly his. And she came freely, in every sense of the word, he thinks to himself. She's killed a man. Saved one of his children. Only blood can bind. She's mine.  

---

I'm waiting for my judgment for holding my tongue about the riot. I don't know what my punishment will be, but whatever it is, I deserve it. But I do not need to fear rough retribution any longer; Adar presses his lips to mine, embracing me. Tears still run down my face. I am alive when I should be dead. I'm being loved when I should be facing penance. When I was slipping from this world, he called me to him, and I found him in the black void. He might be a son of the dark, but he's the eternal keeper of my heart.