I get the feeling that even if you give it back, you'll end up gaining it back anyway. It pretty much force Shadowheart to commit suicide so you pick it up from her corpse if you do no recruit her (you need to win DCs to not kill her).
IIRC, according to the dataminers -
The general wants to get to you because he's trying to escape from Shadowheart/the Sharrans' control and return to the githyanki. Which still leaves a lot of questions - why you (if your character isn't gith) and not Lae'zel? Why doesn't he start driving you mad if you don't head for the creche? How is he even aware of what's going on?
Questions to be answered later, maybe.
First time I read of this and I personally datamined things about the artifact and what is inside of it. There is nothing about it in the game file outside
- Shadowheart's ultimatum where you learn what is in the artifact and that he wants to get freed from it. Nothing about escaping the Sharran's control or returning to the githyanki there. - That Raphael end up telling the rest of the party that Shadowheart has it and that he wants it.
