Elysian (After Stellarlune)

28. Keefe's POV

"What's wrong with her?" Keefe frantically asked his girlfriend as she gathered up a few supplies and started to head for the window. "What are we walking into?"

"I-I-I don't know. I just know she's in trouble." Sophie held her home crystal up to the sliver of moonlight coming from the fully transparent window opposite the door. "Come if you want. I don't care. But we're leaving now. Grab a hand if you're coming."

Predictably, everyone found another person's hand to hold as they all glittered away to Havenfield.

When they reappeared seconds later, there was chaos.

The gorgadon had gotten out of its enclosure, and was circling the field above them.

Verdi had also escaped, and not having taken to her vegetarian diet, per usual, she was looking around hungrily for something to eat. And she would probably find something.

Animals were everywhere. Some flying, most running around in panic and disarray. Worse, the smaller animals kept coming closer and closer to being trampled by the large ones, or in some cases, dangerously close to being snapped up in Verdi's hungry teeth.

In the center of the animal chaos was Silveny, flying over top of the field with her mate, Greyfell, and their twin baby alicorns Wynn and Luna. There was something that looked like invisible arrows shooting at them, and Keefe knew instantly what was happening.

"The Neverseen!" he yelled to their group.

Everyone nodded, having noticed this, and Marella even muttered under her breath, "Duh."

Whatever. Keefe thought, choosing to ignore those around him. He needed to focus on finding the one person he never could: Lady Gisela. Keefe had vowed after Stellarlune to never address her as his mother again, not even in his head.

The only signs that the Neverseen really were there were the obvious panic of the animals, the air shooting at the alicorns, and the occasional flash of a black cloak or haunting image of the Neverseen's eye symbol.

Keefe looked around the field, desperate to find Gisela. But there was no trace of her. From the cloaks that Keefe could see, there were only two or three Neverseen members there, all of them flaunting powers that his mother did not have. He soon remembered that his mother was no longer a part of the Neverseen, and was on her own now.

Keefe then noticed that there was an almost transparent force field around what Keefe could now recognize as three Neverseen members, one obviously holding up the forcefield, one shooting the arrows of air through a hole at the top, and a cloak with no body underneath it.

No. Keefe thought in despair. It can't be.

And it wasn't. When the Vanisher flickered into view for a second, she was someone that Keefe vaguely recognized, but couldn't quite pin down her name. It wasn't Alvar, to Keefe's eternal relief.

Wylie seemed to know who it was, though, and gasped. The Vanisher turned her head to look at him.

"No." he breathed. "Ramira?"

So that's who it was. Councilor Ramira. Keefe figured that Ramira was Wylie's Councilor contact for Team Valiant, because that would explain why he knew her.

Ramira smiled coldly. "For far too long, our world has been broken. It is time to fix it. I believe it is my duty, my right, to be a part of the solution. To my dismay, Liora and I share the same values, but she has chosen the wrong side. Pity. She would have been a great ally, but now she is an enemy that will fall. Just as you will fall at the end of this futile conflict."