"That which can be destroyed by the truth should be."
-- P. C. Hodgell, Seeker's Mask.
Keltham watches her go with a somewhat uneasy feeling that he's been socially-pressured into doing something riskier for Pilar than he should. She was slated to take the Worldwound oath, right? That's - Golarion adulthood? She wanted to take this risk and had her reasons for it, there were arguments for it...
Well, what's done is done; if Keltham wanted to question the wisdom of this, the time for that would have been several days earlier when he agreed to run this trial.
She is, in fact, going to be okay, right? Alter-Pilar would definitely be okay, so that's who Keltham saw, confident in her faith. But real-Pilar should also be okay. She's already been through her trial in Elysium. If there was any flaw in her faith, for all this art and technique to find and crack through, the Elysians would have used that against her already, right...
...unless they didn't pick it out on purpose. Because they were not, in fact, actually trying to convert her away from Asmodeanism, just then.
Pilar will find her way to somewhere near Subirachs's office, just in case she is less invincible in her faith than she thought, and requires either sudden spiritual guidance, or a Sleep spell to put her out long enough for Aspexia Rugatonn to get there and correct her in a matter of faith.
...when the first rush of fear has subsided, Pilar looks within herself for her faith in Asmodeus. For the surety, still there, that a Keeper is obviously what He desires His slave Pilar to become. The right way, the Lawful way, for which sake Pilar needs there to be something above her to correct her. Her Evil is imperfect enough - though Pilar knows full well that in Lawful Good or even Lawful Neutral there is no place for her, who must needs be punished and whipped and corrected and not by her own will either - but she can at least serve Asmodeus rightly in Law. Nothing of Chaos has ever tempted her.
She will master this. It is certainly -
It is likely Asmodeus's will.
An ilani does not require certainty to act.
Pilar goes looking, then, for the things she is not thinking, to find the directions where she is scared to look, and look there. Devils are not afraid to know themselves, or, if they are, Lord Asmodeus is annoyed about it.
There is a note of unease inside her.
Pilar notices it consciously, and continues about her self-investigation.
She was not lying to Keltham that somebody needs to take this trial, and maybe learn something that Project Lawful needs to learn, one way or another. Aspexia Rugatonn herself has faith in Pilar. Pilar can, if not believe too much in herself, believe in Aspexia Rugatonn who believes in her.
And Pilar realizes that she never thought, since she saw Hell's true face scryed to her in Elysium, since Elysium forced her to face how much she hadn't liked torturing those children, and know the deep flaw running through her faith, Pilar realizes that since then she never once thought about whether her mother and sister, who are less strong in their own faith than Pilar, might maybe not want go to Hell.
There's a jumble of horrified thoughts that are allowed to run for long enough that Pilar Pineda can come to appreciate her own folly, her arrogance and overconfidence and disdain in thinking that dath ilani were only weak and that she was ready to learn all they mark as dangerous; for her mind to try suggesting that her mother and sister cannot come before Asmodeus in her heart, because she is a very good Asmodean who does not care for her family, except of course as something she can make use of because of their own naive sentiments which she plays to; and for Pilar to think that if she were a Keeper, she would already know that she was lying to herself about this all along, the one worst error inside her -
- to fear that this crack runs deep enough to split her faith through, fear that as she's never feared any threat to her faith in all her days in Cheliax and only one time in Elysium; but then if not wanting to hurt useless children was enough to shake her faith, then how could this thought not be enough to crack, even if it doesn't crack her faith, what if it cracks her -
By the hidden effects of Pilar's actions.
Though even if Pilar had not sent the Osirian team home safely, after seeing somebody who looked like Pilar, there would still have been enough information for Osirion to identify Pilar Pineda. She's a student who went missing from Ostenso's wizard academy at the same time as the others, even if she wasn't among the souls being traded highly in Dis.
Osirion heard that a Project Lawful girl had come back from Elysium, and asked why somebody who sorted as Chaotic Good would consent to be raised in Cheliax. They suspected that maybe her family was being held hostage against her. The girl who went to Elysium would obviously be a girl like Pilar, whose soul isn't being traded in Dis.
So Osirion kidnapped Pilar's mother and sister, to take them out of reach of Cheliax's threats; and offered them Atonements for everything they hated being forced to do in Cheliax, to remove them from the reach of Hell's vengeance. They thought that they might be breaking a leash that held Pilar to be used by Cheliax, and that perhaps Pilar would be grateful to Osirion for it; but if that wasn't true, they would still not regret it.
Pilar's mother and sister accepted Osirion's offer, and the Atonements took.
Then when Pilar's mother and sister were finally allowed to think without fear of mindreading and fear of Hell, they felt sickened and wounded by all that had been done to them, and all that they had been forced to do.
Pilar's mother and sister talked their new situation over with each other and decided that they probably could never be happy like this, because of being terrified about malediction, or doing something Evil by accident, or above all being terrified that Cheliax would kidnap them back.
Osirion offered to increase their security and to pay for insurance against future Atonements being required.
Pilar's mother and sister said that they did not want to be a burden to the Osirians who had been kind to them.
They're in Axis now, safe, learning how to be happy.
Pilar wasn't told because Aspexia Rugatonn did not wish to facilitate whatever it was that Osirion might have hoped to accomplish.
PILAR DID NOT ASK FOR THIS.
Fury anger horror and shame, and something that makes no sense in terms of Asmodeanism or just plain reality that's thinking that she's been separated forever from her family in the afterlife they should have shared -
No, Pilar did not.
But this is what lets Pilar learn what she needs to learn, without that breaking her faith or breaking her.
This is what serves Asmodeus's interests.
Pilar's curse knows.
Pilar was promised that her being chosen as Cayden Cailean's oracle would end up serving Asmodeus. From the beginning, nothing was ever said of what would become of Pilar.
A horrible strangled sound comes from Pilar's throat, and then she's turning to run, running half-blind into Subirachs's office, she needs to report this to the Most High, that because she wasn't Asmodean enough Asmodeus has been deprived of two souls He could have made some use of, she needs to be hurt needs to be punished needs to be made clean of her shame and her sin, and she also knows that she'll never really be clean of it again.