Kaida POV
I woke up screaming.
The nightmare was still vivid—possessed creatures tearing me apart, their green eyes burning into my soul, that horrible voice saying it would feed on my blood. My whole body shook with terror.
"You're safe." Ryven's voice was soft and close. "Kaida, you're safe. I promise."
I blinked, trying to focus. We weren't in the archives anymore. We were in a cave, firelight flickering on stone walls. Ryven sat beside me in human form, his silver eyes full of worry.
"Where are we?" My throat felt raw from screaming.
"The Forbidden Mountains. An old dragon-rider sanctuary." He helped me sit up slowly. "Zephyra brought us here. Those ancient wards you read about? They're real. Nothing possessed can cross them."
I should have felt relieved. Instead, I felt trapped. "How long was I unconscious?"
"Two days."
"Two days?" I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn't work. "Ryven, we can't hide here! Those things are still out there, possessing beasts, hurting people—"
"And you nearly died fighting them." His hands gripped my shoulders firmly. "Kaida, you used covenant magic twice in one night. Magic that shouldn't exist anymore. Your body needs time to recover."
"I don't have time!" Tears burned my eyes. "Don't you understand? That voice said I'm a Covenant Keeper. Whatever that means, those creatures want me dead because of it. And everyone in the city—"
"Is being protected by Uncle Aurelius and the dragon clans." Ryven's voice was gentle but firm. "They're handling it. Right now, you need to focus on understanding what you are."
What I am. The words hit me like a punch.
I'd spent five years being told I was useless. Worthless. A disappointment. And now suddenly I was supposed to be some ancient powerful thing that everyone either wanted to control or kill.
"I don't want to be a Covenant Keeper," I whispered. "I just want to be normal."
"Normal is overrated." Ryven smiled sadly. "Trust me, I've been pretending to be normal for 287 years. It's exhausting."
Despite everything, I almost laughed. Then I remembered something. "You said you were my fated mate. Back at the archives, you told your uncle—"
His face turned red. Actually red. A 287-year-old dragon was blushing.
"You weren't supposed to remember that," he muttered. "You were unconscious."
"I heard it right before I passed out." I grabbed his hand, needing to know the truth. "What does that mean? Fated mate?"
Ryven took a deep breath. "Dragons mate for life. We can't help it—our souls recognize their other half. When we find that person, everything changes. We'd die for them. Kill for them. Nothing else matters." He met my eyes. "I soul-recognized you when we were children, Kaida. Before I even understood what it meant. You've been my fated mate for over a decade."
My heart stopped. Started. Stopped again.
"But I'm human," I said stupidly.
"You're a dragon rider. Close enough." He squeezed my hand. "And the bond we have now—the accidental one from your taming spell—it just made what I already felt stronger. I can't hide it anymore. Can't pretend I'm just your friend when every fiber of my being screams that you're mine."
I should have been scared. Should have felt pressured or trapped. But all I felt was safe. For the first time in five years, someone wanted me. Not my power, not my family name—just me.
"I don't know what I feel," I admitted. "Everything's happening so fast. A week ago, I was scrubbing floors. Now I'm supposedly this ancient powerful thing, and you're a dragon, and monsters are hunting me—"
"Then don't decide anything now." Ryven stood up, pulling me with him. "Just let me teach you. Let me help you understand your power. The rest—we'll figure it out later."
Teaching. Right. That's what we were supposed to be doing before the world went insane.
"Where's Zephyra?" I asked, looking around the cave.
"Scouting the perimeter. Making sure nothing followed us." He gestured toward a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain. "This place is huge. The old riders built an entire training complex inside the mountain. Libraries, practice grounds, living quarters. Everything we need."
"For how long?"
His expression darkened. "As long as it takes for you to be strong enough to fight what's coming."
A chill ran down my spine. "What is coming?"
"I don't know. But whatever's possessing those beasts—it's not random. It's organized. Intelligent. And it specifically wants you." Ryven's jaw clenched. "We need to figure out why before it finds a way past these wards."
He led me through the tunnels, and despite my fear, I couldn't help being amazed. The walls were covered in carvings—dragons and humans fighting together, flying together, living together. This was the world before the Purge. Before dragons went into hiding.
"It's beautiful," I whispered.
"It's what the world should have been." Ryven traced one carving of a rider on a dragon's back. "Partners. Equals. Instead, humans got scared of dragon power and tried to wipe us out. So we hid. Became the monsters in the shadows rather than the allies we could have been."
We entered a massive chamber, and I gasped. It was a library—thousands of books lining the walls, scrolls stacked on tables, crystals glowing with stored knowledge.
"The old riders kept everything here," Ryven explained. "History, magic theory, training techniques. If we're going to unlock your full power, this is where we start."
I walked to the nearest shelf, running my fingers over ancient spines. My power. The thing everyone wanted to steal or destroy.
"What if I can't control it?" I asked quietly. "What if I'm like those possessed creatures? What if I hurt people?"
"You won't." Ryven appeared beside me. "You freed those creatures, remember? You didn't hurt them. You saved them."
"This time. But that voice in my blood said I could control all dragons." I looked at him. "Including you. What if I accidentally—"
"You won't." He said it with absolute certainty. "Kaida, I've been watching you for years. You're the kindest person I know. Even after everything your family did, you never became cruel like them. You feed injured birds. You apologize to furniture when you bump into it. You cry when you see others suffering." He cupped my face gently. "That's who you are. Power won't change that."
I wanted to believe him. Needed to believe him.
"Okay," I whispered. "Teach me. Show me how to control this thing inside me before it controls me."
Ryven smiled and pulled a book from the shelf. "First lesson: covenant magic isn't about controlling dragons. It's about understanding them. Speaking their language. Connecting with their souls." He opened the book to a page covered in strange symbols. "These are the old words you spoke during the battle. Do you remember them?"
I looked at the symbols, and something stirred in my blood. "Yes. They just came out. Like my mouth remembered even though my brain didn't."
"That's the bloodline memory. The covenant magic is in your blood, passed down through generations. We just need to wake it up properly." He turned the page. "But there's something you need to know first. Something about what Covenant Keepers really were."
The way he said it made my stomach drop. "What?"
Ryven hesitated, his expression troubled. "Covenant Keepers weren't just powerful riders. They were mediators. Peacekeepers between dragons and humans. And according to these texts—" He pointed to a passage. "They could do something no other rider could."
"What?"
"They could break soul-bonds. Or force new ones." His voice was barely a whisper. "They could literally rearrange the connections between dragons and riders. Separate fated mates. Bind enemies together. Control who bonded with whom."
Horror washed over me. "That's—that's like playing god."
"Yes. Which is why there were only ever three Covenant Keepers at a time, chosen very carefully. They had too much power. And three hundred years ago—" He closed the book. "All three were assassinated on the same night. No one knows who killed them. After that, the Purge happened. Dragons and riders turned on each other, and everything fell apart."
My hands started shaking. "You think that's why those things are hunting me? Because I can control bonds?"
"I think they're scared of you." Ryven grabbed my shoulders. "Kaida, if you can force bonds, you could unite every dragon under your command. You could rebuild the old rider system. You could—"
A scream echoed through the tunnels. Zephyra's scream.
We ran toward the sound, my exhaustion forgotten. We burst out of the mountain entrance and froze.
Zephyra lay on the ground, her storm eagles dead around her. And standing over her body was a woman I recognized—Setsuna's head maid, the one who'd always been cruelest to me.
But her eyes glowed green.
"Found you," she said in that horrible mind-voice. "The wards don't stop humans. We just had to find the right puppet." She smiled with Setsuna's maid's mouth. "Your sister sends her regards, little rider. She's very eager to see you again."
Then the maid's body convulsed, and black smoke erupted from her mouth—far more than had come from the beasts before. The smoke formed into a shape. A face.
A face I recognized from the old carvings.
"No," I breathed. "That's impossible."
"Nothing's impossible," the smoke-face hissed. "Not when you've been waiting three hundred years for revenge. Hello, Covenant Keeper. Remember me? I'm the one who killed your ancestors. And now—"
The smoke lunged at me.
Ryven threw himself in front of me, transforming mid-leap. His dragon form crashed into the smoke entity, and they tumbled across the mountainside, locked in combat.
But the smoke was different from before. Stronger. It wrapped around Ryven like chains, and I heard him scream—actually scream—in pain.
"Ryven!" I ran toward them, power surging in my blood.
The smoke-face turned to me. "Yes. Come closer. Let me taste that covenant blood. Let me show you what I did to the last Keepers who tried to stop me."
Golden marks blazed on my skin. Ancient words poured from my lips.
And deep in the mountain behind us, something woke up.
Something that had been sleeping for three hundred years.
The entire mountain shook. Stones cracked. And from the depths of the library chamber, I heard a sound that shouldn't exist—a dragon's roar, but layered with hundreds of voices at once.
The smoke-creature froze. "No. That's impossible. We killed them all. We killed every—"
A massive shape exploded from the mountain entrance. Not one dragon. Not even ten.
A dragon made of pure light, formed from the souls of hundreds of dead riders and their bonded dragons, merged into one impossible being.
And it was looking directly at me.
"Covenant Keeper," it said in a voice like thunder and silk. "Finally. We've been waiting so long for you to come home."