Kaida POV
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
A dragon made of light and souls hovered before me, its body shifting and shimmering like it was made of a thousand stars. Inside that massive form, I could see faces—hundreds of them. Dragons and humans, their spirits merged together in death the way they'd been bonded in life.
"You're the Soul Keepers," I whispered, somehow knowing the name. "The riders and dragons who died in the Purge."
"We are what remains," the merged entity said, its voice echoing with all those lost souls. "We are the covenant's last defense. And you, child, are the key to our freedom—or our final death."
The smoke-creature that had been attacking Ryven shrieked in rage. "Impossible! We destroyed you three hundred years ago! You should be gone, scattered, powerless!"
"You destroyed our bodies," the Soul Keepers replied. "But covenant magic doesn't die so easily. We bound our spirits to this sanctuary, waiting for the day a true Keeper would return." The massive light-dragon turned its attention back to me. "And now she has."
Ryven, still in dragon form and wrapped in smoke-chains, managed to gasp out, "Kaida, run! You're not strong enough yet—"
"Silence, young Shadow Dragon." The Soul Keepers' voice wasn't cruel, just firm. "Your mate is stronger than you know. She freed possessed beasts with covenant words she's never studied. She awakened marks that have slept for centuries. She carries the blood of the First Keeper in her veins."
My head spun. "The First Keeper?"
"The original Covenant Keeper who forged the peace between dragons and humans millennia ago." The Soul Keepers drifted closer. "Her bloodline was thought extinct. But it seems one branch survived, hidden in plain sight among beast-taming clans who forgot what they truly were."
The smoke-creature laughed—a horrible, scraping sound. "It doesn't matter what bloodline she carries. She's weak. Untrained. And I've grown so much stronger in three hundred years of feeding on possessed souls." The smoke tightened around Ryven, and he screamed in pain. "I'll kill her fated mate first. Let her watch him die. Then I'll take her power for myself."
"NO!" The word exploded from me with golden light.
I didn't think. Didn't plan. I just ran toward Ryven, my hands blazing with those ancient marks. The covenant magic poured through me like a river of fire, and I spoke words I'd never learned.
"Release him, shadow spawn! By the First Covenant, by the bond between souls, by the ancient law of rider and dragon—RELEASE HIM!"
The smoke-chains shattered. Ryven crashed to the ground, gasping and bleeding.
The smoke-creature recoiled like I'd burned it. "She speaks with authority. True authority. How?"
"Because she is what she was born to be," the Soul Keepers said. "Even if she doesn't understand it yet."
I dropped to my knees beside Ryven, my hands shaking as I touched his scales. "Are you okay? Did it hurt you? I'm sorry, I should have been faster—"
"I'm fine." His dragon voice rumbled with pain, but also pride. "That was incredible, Kaida. You just broke a possession bond using only your voice."
"Touching." The smoke-creature had reformed, larger than before. "But words won't save you from what's coming. I am Malakor, the Void Eater. I consumed the souls of the last three Covenant Keepers. I ended the age of riders. And I will end you too, little girl."
Malakor. The name sent ice through my veins. I'd read about him in the archives—an ancient entity from before dragons, before humans, before anything. A creature of pure hunger that fed on souls and bonds.
"You're supposed to be sealed," I said, my voice shaking. "The First Keeper bound you in the Abyss using all three Covenant Keepers' combined power."
"And three hundred years ago, I finally broke free." Malakor's smoke-form twisted into something almost human-shaped. "The Keepers thought they could stop me permanently. But they made a mistake—they didn't account for what I'd learned while sealed. I studied covenant magic from the inside. And when I escaped, I knew exactly how to corrupt it."
He gestured, and the possessed maid's body rose like a puppet. "I can't possess dragons or riders directly—the covenant protects them. But humans? Regular, powerless humans?" He smiled with the maid's mouth. "They're perfect vessels. And through them, I can possess beasts, twist bonds, corrupt souls. I've been building my army for three centuries, waiting for a Covenant Keeper to emerge so I can finish what I started."
"Why?" I demanded. "Why do you want Keepers dead so badly?"
"Because you're the only ones who can permanently destroy me." Malakor's voice turned cold. "The First Keeper sealed me once. Another Keeper could do it again. So I eliminated every Keeper I could find. Assassinated them. Corrupted their allies. Turned dragons and riders against each other until the whole system collapsed." He laughed. "The Purge was my masterpiece. I didn't even have to lift a finger—I just whispered the right fears into the right ears, and they slaughtered each other."
Rage burned in my chest. All that death. All that suffering. Dragons forced into hiding. Riders lost forever. Because of him.
"You destroyed everything," I whispered.
"And I'll destroy you too. But first—" Malakor's smoke shot toward the Soul Keepers. "I'll consume these pathetic spirits who dared to wait for you."
"NO!" I screamed, but I was too slow.
The smoke crashed into the light-dragon. The Soul Keepers roared in pain as Malakor began tearing souls from their merged form. I watched in horror as faces screamed and vanished, consumed by the Void Eater.
"Stop it!" I ran toward them, power blazing from my hands. "Leave them alone!"
"Covenant Keeper!" The Soul Keepers' voice was fading, weakening. "You must... complete the bond... merge your power with ours... it's the only way..."
"I don't know how!"
"Trust your blood... trust the covenant... let us in..."
Malakor laughed as more souls vanished into his darkness. "Yes, little Keeper. Merge with them. Let me consume you all at once. It'll be so much easier."
I stood frozen, terrified. If I merged with the Soul Keepers and failed, Malakor would consume not just me but hundreds of spirits. But if I didn't try, he'd consume them anyway, and then kill Ryven and me.
"Kaida." Ryven had shifted back to human form, blood dripping from his wounds. "Whatever you're going to do, do it now. I trust you."
Those three words—I trust you—shattered my fear.
I closed my eyes and reached for the Soul Keepers with my power. "I'm here. I'm ready. Show me what to do."
Light exploded around me as hundreds of souls rushed into my body. I felt their memories, their pain, their love. Three hundred years of waiting. Three hundred years of hope that someday, someone would come.
And I felt their power.
Not controlling it. Not stealing it. Sharing it. The way covenant magic was always meant to work—partnership, not domination.
My body lifted off the ground, golden light pouring from every inch of my skin. The marks on my arms spread across my entire body, forming patterns I'd never seen. Ancient patterns. Keeper patterns.
"Impossible," Malakor hissed. "You're too weak. Too young. You can't—"
"I'm not doing this alone," I said, and my voice echoed with hundreds of others. "I'm doing it with every rider and dragon who died protecting the covenant. Their strength is my strength. Their love is my love. And you—" I raised my hands, and golden chains erupted from the ground, wrapping around Malakor's smoke-form. "You are finished."
"NO!" Malakor thrashed against the chains. "I am eternal! I am the Void! You cannot—"
"By the power of the First Covenant," I spoke in the old tongue, the words flowing easily now, "by the bonds of riders and dragons, by the souls who wait for justice—I seal you, Malakor. Not in the Abyss this time. Somewhere deeper. Somewhere you'll never escape."
The golden chains tightened, pulling Malakor down. The ground cracked open, revealing not darkness but blinding light—pure covenant magic, burning like the sun.
"What is this?" Malakor screamed.
"Your prison." I felt the Soul Keepers guiding my words. "The hearts of every rider and dragon you killed. They're taking you with them. You'll be trapped in their love, their bonds, their memories. Forever."
"NO! I am hunger! I am emptiness! I cannot exist in—"
Malakor's scream cut off as the light swallowed him. The chains dragged him down, down, down into that burning brightness until nothing remained but silence.
The ground sealed itself. The golden chains vanished.
And I collapsed.
The Soul Keepers' presence faded from my body, leaving me gasping and shaking. But I could still feel them—not inside me anymore, but around me. Watching. Waiting.
"You did it," Ryven breathed, crawling over to hold me. "Kaida, you actually sealed him."
"Is he gone?" I could barely speak. "Forever?"
"Not forever." The Soul Keepers' voice was weak but clear. "The seal will hold for decades, maybe centuries. But eventually, he'll find a way to break free again. Void entities always do."
My heart sank. "Then this was all for nothing?"
"No, child. You've bought the world time. Time for more Keepers to awaken. Time for dragons and riders to reunite. Time to rebuild what was broken." The light-dragon was fading now, the souls beginning to separate. "We've waited three hundred years for this moment. And now, finally, we can rest."
"Wait!" I struggled to my feet. "Don't go yet. I still don't understand what I'm supposed to do. How do I be a Covenant Keeper? How do I—"
"You already know." The Soul Keepers smiled—hundreds of faces smiling at once. "Trust your blood. Trust your heart. And most of all, trust the bond you share with your dragon." They looked at Ryven. "Protect her, Shadow Dragon. She's going to need you in the days ahead."
"Always," Ryven promised.
The Soul Keepers began to dissolve into particles of light, each soul finally free to move on. But before the last one faded, it spoke directly into my mind:
The maid was just a puppet, child. She wasn't working alone. Someone in your family has been helping Malakor. Someone close to you. Find them before they strike again.
Then the souls were gone, and we were alone on the mountainside with Zephyra's unconscious body and Setsuna's maid, who was breathing but empty-eyed.
I looked at Ryven. "Did you hear that? Someone in my family—"
"Is working with Malakor." His expression turned grim. "Or was working with him. Maybe they didn't know what he really was."
"Or maybe they knew exactly what he was." I thought about Setsuna's cruelty, my father's coldness, the way my family had turned on me so completely. "Someone wanted me dead badly enough to make a deal with a Void entity."
Ryven pulled me close. "Then we find out who. And we make them pay."
I should have been scared. Should have wanted to run back into hiding.
But all I felt was anger. Cold, burning anger.
For five years, I'd let my family break me. Let them make me feel worthless. Let them steal my life piece by piece.
No more.
I was a Covenant Keeper. The first in three centuries. And whoever had tried to kill me was about to learn exactly what that meant.
"We need to go back," I said. "Back to the estate. Back to my family."
"Are you sure?" Ryven looked worried. "You just sealed a Void entity. You need rest—"
"I need answers." I started walking down the mountain, my legs shaky but determined. "And I'm going to get them. Even if I have to tear my whole family apart to find the truth."
Behind us, the maid's body suddenly jerked. Her eyes opened—no longer green, but filled with pure terror.
"He's coming," she gasped. "The master. He knows you sealed Malakor. He's so angry. He's going to—"
She never finished. Black smoke erupted from her mouth—not Malakor this time, but something else. Something that felt familiar in a horrible way.
The smoke formed words in the air:
Well done, sister. You've become everything I hoped you would. Now come home. We have so much to discuss. - S
The message faded.
I stood frozen, my blood turning to ice.
Setsuna.
My own sister was the traitor.