'Oh. Look at this. A little light,' a woman's voice fills the darkness as the ethereal hands keep her within the circle. Each squeezing just enough to remind her of her still slowly knitting bones – she's recovered from her grievous wounds but even divine healing leaves a deep ache in the body as it heals. The shadows darken which given her current location in the Shadowfell is quiet a feat. Deep within her soul she feels a kinship with the voice before a primal fear urges her to get away.
Large cold hands squeezing on places once reserved for smaller, gentler hands. Despite herself her mind reaches for anything instead of the woman's voice icy voice coming from the darkness.
Isobel's hands glowing the color of moonlight as she healed a bite from gnoll on Aylin's arm. A hand tenderly holding onto her arm as they attended ceremonies at temples or the occasional gala when pomp and circumstance required their attendance.
'My dearest sister's spawn turned champion,' the large ethereal hand squeezes Aylin's forearm as the woman's voice breaks thoughts of better days – what feels like a lifetime ago. She swears she can feel her bones breaking and grinding together under the impossible strength of the one hand.
'For years I've thought about what torments to put you through. Of what boon to give one of my most holy for delivering you to me,' another squeeze of her forearm before jerking the limb to the side while the hand on her shoulder bares down with the weight of an enraged goddess. Her pain magnifies as she is pressed down on her newly healed knee and then further down until her forehead touches ground. The hands feel far stronger than anything Aylin ever fought as she struggles to get out of the forced prostration.
'All it took was the death of your whore and a whisper of making Selûne pay for not saving his whelp for Ketheric to bring you here to me.'
Her mine flashes of Isobel's last moments – spending the last of her divine magic to give protect Aylin with a death ward – and Gods how could she not see Ketheric's fury – not entirely about Isobel's murder but Aylin's failure in preventing it. In Selûne's inability to bring her own most devout cleric back from the dead. The fury he unleashed on her not long after speaking of divine duties.
'I can hear my sister crying out now as Ketheric and my Dark Justiciars raze her temple in Reithwin and rip her worshipers apart. As she cries out to her daughter. But you can't hear it can you, little light,' venom seeps from the words and the hand on her shoulder stops pressing down on her – remaining in place with it's gentle pressure again. The sorrow in her soul weighs her down almost as much as the hand did. Her thoughts try to think of the numerous people she had come to care about but can only see them being massacred by their once liege-lord.
Her mind flashes to Eldon's wry smile when he mentions Isobel in passing to make Aylin get flustered. His kind words of encouragement when Aylin prepared to ask for Isobel's hand in marriage – both to her most holy mother and Ketheric.
Then Gerringothe Thorm's laughter as more often then not Aylin's coin purse was just a bit too light to pay the toll to Moonrise Towers. The same woman who would then insist Aylin tell the workers of her adventures in lieu of gold. Or after her marriage to Isobel when Gerringothe would offer Aylin a bypass of the tollhouse if only the married couple came to her house for dinner. A house she shared with her lover. a healer from the temple.
The hand on her shoulder forces her up from the kowtow and Aylin's stomach drops as before her stands a 12 foot tall woman covered from head to toe with robes of shadows and centered on the woman's chest was the purple and blackened circle that all Sharran's carry with them. Her face hidden behind a mask of raven's feathers. Shar's figure glides closer to her like a shadow stretching as the sun moves across the sky.
'Don't worry their pain will be nothing compared to yours."
The ethereal hand on her shoulder stretches out fingers before lingering on the newly formed golden scar on her chest.
The touch lacks any of the gentleness Isobel's hands would as the cleric's hands tracing down from her chest to her stomach. Fingers lingering and following old and new golden scars on the paladin's body. Isobel's index finger running up and down Aylin's sternum while the two talked the night away in each other's embrace. The half-elf giving her a flustered tap on her breastbone when Aylin would tease her.
The thought abruptly ends as the clawed fingers from the blue hand on her shoulder pierce through the golden scar on her chest. A pulse of necrotic energy saps deep into her being and a cry is ripped from her throat.
'Your divine blood from my sister dooms you to this never ending life of pain and suffering.'
The hand resting on her hip digs it's claws into her abdomen. Twisting and burying deep into her guts.
'Each one of my worshipers will prove their worthiness to be a Dark Justiciar by spilling your blood however they like.'
Aylin's vision start to darken at the edges only to burst with white hot pain as the claws deep into her gut eviscerates her in a violent jerk. A scream of pain ripped from her throat just as easily as the intestines were ripped from her body.
'And your screams shall be my Nightsong for eternity!'
For the second time in less than an hour, Aylin dies.