Omar did not speak immediately.
Outside his wooden house, wind scraped across the village like restless fingers, rattling old charms strung along the eaves. Shadows twisted on the walls as firelight flickered within. Lucy noticed symbols carved into the pillars—animals she had seen in blood on her window: the winged lion, the serpent, the two-faced eagle, the horned beast… and the wolf.
Chief Omar finally lifted his eyes to her.
They were not old eyes.
They were tired eyes.
Eyes that had watched too much.
"You were not meant to come here," he said softly. "He tried to keep you away."
Lucy's chest tightened. "My father?"
Omar nodded once. Slowly.
Merlin shifted beside her, voice low. "Then you did know him."
Omar gave a sad smile. "I knew him better than he ever wanted anyone to."
Lucy leaned forward. "Please. You say you cannot tell me how he died… but you can still tell me who he was. Everyone else speaks of him like he was only a forest officer. But I know—he was more than that."
Silence stretched between them.
Then—
"He was a protector," Omar whispered. "Not just of this village. Of all that still breathes beneath Evergreen."
Lucy frowned. "But how—"
"He was chosen."
Those two words landed like thunder.
"Chosen… by what?" Merlin asked.
Omar looked at the fire.
"…By the forest itself."
The world cracked.
Lucy gasped as the walls dissolved, the fire stretched into a blazing doorway—and suddenly, she was no longer in Omar's house.
She stood barefoot on damp earth.
Moonlight flooded everything silver-blue.
Merlin stood beside her, breath caught in his chest.
They were inside Evergreen Forest.
But not as it was now.
It was alive in a way Lucy had never imagined.
The trees glowed faintly, veins of pale light threading through bark and roots. Fireflies hovered like floating stars. The air breathed—as though the forest itself were alive.
Before them, a younger Omar stood in tribal cloaks, head bowed.
Next to him…
A man.
Tall. Broad shouldered.
Eyes sharp and kind and burning with quiet strength.
Lucy's heart screamed.
"Father…"
Her voice held no sound here.
The man was Robert Desmond.
Not in uniform.
Not weary.
Not distant.
He knelt beside a great black wolf lying in a clearing of glowing flowers.
The wolf was massive.
Bigger than any beast.
His white eyes shone like moons.
Volmer.
The Wolf God.
THE BOND
Robert reached out slowly. Carefully.
Volmer did not snarl.
Did not growl.
Instead—
He bowed his head.
Omar's voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere:
"He did not conquer the forest. The forest chose him. Volmer chose him."
Lucy watched her father place his hand against the great wolf's brow.
Light flared.
Not fire.
Not lightning.
Moonlight.
It wrapped around Robert and Volmer together—human and beast—body and soul.
A bond.
A curse.
And a blessing.
In that moment, Lucy felt it.
The loneliness her father carried.
The weight.
The nights he woke shaking.
The dreams he never spoke of.
The howling that lived in his veins.
Tears ran down her face.
"He carried Volmer inside him," Omar's voice said. "Not as a monster… but as a guardian. A jailer. A shield."
Merlin whispered, "Then Robert… wasn't killed by the wolf."
"No," Omar replied.
"He became the cage to contain it."
The vision changed.
Fire.
Screams.
Guns.
Hunters in the forest.
Men with unholy sigils burned into their skin.
Businessmen.
Soldiers.
Magicians.
Traitors.
They stood within the heart of Evergreen.
Lucy saw her father—wounded—bleeding.
She saw men chanting.
A ritual.
Blood on leaves.
Chains made of glowing runes locking around Robert's body.
"NO!" she screamed.
A figure stepped forward.
A man with familiar eyes.
Cold eyes.
Victor Hale.
Her mother's husband.
Samuel's father.
"He sold the forest," Omar's voice broke. "Sold its secrets. Sold your father."
Lucy collapsed to her knees.
Victor had always been there.
Waiting.
Watching.
The vision pulled closer.
Lucy felt her own heart blister with heat.
"I don't understand… why me?" she whispered.
"Omar…" she begged softly.
The old chief's voice came like a confession soaked in centuries.
"Because when Volmer was bound inside your father… something passed through."
Lucy trembled.
"You were born… not just human."
Merlin's breath hitched.
Omar spoke the final truth:
"You were born a bridge."
Forest and flesh.
Moon and blood.
Beast and girl.
"You are not becoming something unnatural," Omar said quietly.
"You are remembering what you always were."
Lucy whispered:
"Then… am I the White Wolf?"
The fire blew out.
Darkness swallowed her.
And in the dark—
A howl answered.
Not from the forest.
From within her chest.