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The nightmares started three days after her release. She'd never dreamt in the Shadowfell, not while asleep, anyway. Perhaps it was not even possible to do so. Shar's darkness was all-encompassing. Sleep, rare though it was for celestials, came heavily and without that hint of light needed for the fractured delusions of slumber.
They were traveling when the first nightmare struck, a vision of torment and agony that gripped her soul with familiar clawed hands, dragging her down and down. She'd awoken in a cold sweat and remained awake for the rest of the night, staring unblinkingly at the young cleric sleeping peacefully at her side.
All too soon, Isobel entered her nightmares as well. The fear of losing her darling again, the anguish as she saw her beloved crumple, lifeless, to the ground. Her mind showed her a hundred ways Shar's vengeance might be wrought. She saw her lover, trapped just as she had been, murdered by a faceless justiciar. But unlike Aylin, Isobel could not rise and rise again, protected and cursed by immortality.
They were camped by an all-but-forgotten harbor, run-down buildings and an abandoned chapel forming protection from the wind. The midnight hour had long since been called, yet Aylin remained awake, afraid to relive her ordeal yet again when she closed her eyes. She stood at the rail overlooking the water, gazing out with unseeing eyes. How long would it be before she could sleep without fear? Her body was strong, infinitely stronger than it had been when the cage had surrounded her, its accursed power devouring the vital spark that kept her living until there was barely the slightest hint of a soul within her aching form. Yet even her newfound might had started to falter, worn down by the phantasms that haunted her each night. She needed to endure, for Isobel's sake. But the nightmares seemed determined to draw her away from her beloved, to fray their bonds with the pull of despair.
She did not notice when the drow came to join her, only that Minthara was suddenly there. The paladin said nothing, merely stared out at the waves. Gazing at the drow sidelong, Aylin could see that her eyes were shadowed, half-circles of darkness visible beneath them. Her lips were pale, her expression bleak. Clearly, Aylin had not been the only member of their strange band who'd found sleep elusive.
It occurred to Aylin that she knew hardly anything about her companions, save for the now ex-sharran who had spared her and released her from her bonds. Minthara was a paladin, that much was obvious, but the tenets of her vow were far different from the ones Aylin had adhered to for centuries on end. The drow had a grim ferocity about her, an aura of ruthlessness that did not leave her when battle had drawn to a close. What little Aylin had heard about the drow people implied that Minthara's world had likely been one of backstabbing and treachery, violence and cruelty. Perhaps because of that, Minthara had shadows within her mind as well. Some fresh or ancient wound barred her from the peace of dreamless slumber.
They stood together until the dim light of false dawn turned the mist that hovered over the water a pale, otherworldly gray. Then the paladin spoke.
"Damn them all."
Aylin glanced at her in surprise. The paladin's brow was furrowed. "I know why you're here. I saw you in Shar's realm. The mistress of pain and loss has sunk her teeth into you many times over. Such wounds rarely close."
"Ever?"
The word slipped out before Aylin could stop it, soft and desperate. The thought that she would never truly escape her cage was agonizing. Minthara surveyed her, head tilted slightly as she considered the aasimar. "That depends," she said at last. "For you, Shar may ever be a threat. She has yet to make another move, but it could come at any time. You must live with that."
"I do," Aylin said grimly. "I always have, even before my imprisonment in Shar's realm. The Lady of Shadows has despised me since my birth. Jealous, perhaps, that her divine sister had borne a child. Shar has no natural children of her own."
"She has tried to kill you before?" the drow asked.
"Her followers have," Aylin answered bitterly. "Foul justiciars, steeped in her darkness. Countless have leveled their blades at me. All have failed to cause me harm."
"Yet they managed to capture you," Minthara pointed out.
Aylin grimaced. "That wretch Balthazar is to blame. Before his diabolical cage, there was no way to keep me tamed and at Shar's mercy." She spoke the final word with contempt, knowing full well how little mercy her mother's nemesis was capable of. "They lured me in. Made it seem as though there was an innocent in need of my help."
"Ketheric?" Minthara asked, and Aylin nodded. "And now he has fallen to your blade," the drow said, a note of satisfaction in her voice. "Remember how you felt when your enemy breathed his last. Glory in it."
"I... cannot." Aylin looked away. "My triumph has been eaten away like a body consumed by illness. I cannot remember his death without recalling all that came before it. The years of torture with no hope of an end. The sorrow, the despair." She closed her eyes. "I thought I would be free of it all when Ketheric perished. My first breath of air in the mortal realm was as sweet as anything I have ever tasted. But a part of me remains caged. And what future can there be, if my mind is forever trapped in darkness?"
"Not all of your mind," Minthara said firmly. "A piece, nothing more. The rest of your existence has meaning and worth. Let that sustain you when nothing else can."
Aylin turned to look at Minthara properly, taking in every inch of the paladin. Her connection to all living beings flooded her with fragments of information, bits of memory and feeling that formed no coherent whole, yet provided her with enough of a pattern to begin to understand. She saw drow soldiers, their throats slit by a blood-red knife, and illithid pods, their trapped victims screaming for help that would not come. She saw a worm draw closer and closer, its hundreds of needle-sharp teeth bared and ready to consume flesh. And hovering like a specter over everything, a pale woman with white eyes and a deranged smile.
"Orin the Red."
Aylin jumped, startled out of the memory. Minthara smiled humorlessly. "You think I don't know when someone else is in my mind?"
"Most people don't feel my presence," Aylin said, almost apologetically. "The process is not an active one, for me. I see without searching, find answers before a question is asked."
"I'd guessed as much," Minthara remarked. "I saw your work in the Shadowfell when you read the little cleric's thoughts, guiding her away from her mistress's intent. And just now, you slipped past every barrier I have crafted to keep my mind safe from those who would wish to extract its secrets. Yet I felt no struggle, only a whisper." She crossed her arms. "You have all the answers you desire?"
Slowly, Aylin shook her head. "My power, such as it is, does not assemble a coherent whole. I see fragments, and I must make sense of them. Yet in your mind, the fragments are dominated by this woman. Orin." Aylin shivered. "I have seen her before with my own eyes. Her madness is palpable."
"Madness, yes," Minthara murmured. "But other things, too. Cunning, nihilism, mania. And above all, cruelty. She delights in suffering, in fear. Her abilities are the stuff of nightmares." Minthara gave a soft, derisive laugh. "To think: Ketheric ordered me tortured to death. His lackeys tried to break my mind, erase my very self from existence. Yet I never dream of that dungeon chamber. I never dwell on that pain. My thoughts are with Orin, and only with her. Until she is dead, there can be no rest for me. No hour, waking or sleeping, where I am not on my guard."
She shot Aylin a quick glance, and the aasimar could feel the sudden wave of distrust emanating from her. Aylin did her best to smile. "I have little way to convince you that I am who I seem," she reminded Minthara. "It is difficult to prove one is not a shapeshifter. But here." She held out her hand, conjuring a ball of light within it. "Take it," she urged, holding the magical sphere out to Minthara.
Warily, the drow accepted the ball. Her lips parted as she gasped. She stared searchingly at Aylin. "What is this?" she demanded in a harsh whisper.
Aylin smiled, a bit sadly. "Courage," she replied. "Valor. The strength it takes a mortal to soldier on." She looked away. "My magic can be used to inspire and embolden my allies. Alas, such power cannot affect my own heart."
Minthara was silent for a long moment. Then she sighed. "When I first spoke of what Orin did to me, just after the battle of Moonrise, it felt as though a weight had been lifted from my very soul. Since then, that weight has returned and vanished a dozen times over. One moment my mind is my own, the next it is consumed by thoughts of the murder god's Chosen. At times, I wonder whether I will ever be free of her, or whether her face will be the last thing I see before I die. But then I hear my name called, or spot a potential trap in our path. My mind is tugged in a new direction. The visions fade. So it is, I believe, with you." She looked at Aylin, crimson eyes meeting pale gold. "If anyone can overcome the terror of memory, it is you, aasimar. You have allies. A lover. A purpose. You will drive back the demons of the mind as surely as you drove your sword into Ketheric Thorm's body."
"And what of you?" Aylin asked.
Minthara smiled crookedly. "I have myself. And that will have to be enough."
Aylin opened her mouth to speak, then halted as she saw the look on Minthara's features. The drow was used to handling sorrow and pain herself. Every betrayal, every upheaval, every assassination attempt. She needed to try everything she could to solve the problem of her broken thoughts alone before reaching out for help. Still, as their eyes met, Aylin knew Minthara understood that she was not truly alone. If and when the time came, Aylin would be at her side, guiding her through the darkness.
Without another word, Minthara turned and headed back to her tent. Aylin watched her go, feeling lighter than she had in days. When Minthara had disappeared from view, Aylin went to rejoin Isobel. As she crouched beside her beloved, she felt her eyelids start to droop. She knew that sleep would expose her to yet another round of nightmares, but somehow that seemed more manageable a proposition than before. Climbing into the bedroll beside Isobel, Aylin let her eyes close. Before long, she had drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep.