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Chapter 7: The Name Under the Mountain
publish date:
2026-04-24 15:16:00
Latest chapter
GIVEN TO THE WRONG ALPHA Chapter 47: The Iron Root
The new Tree in D.C. doesn’t grow up.It grows down.We stand in the cracked bowl of the National Mall and watch green light pour into the earth like water, not toward the sky. The shoot we woke — black turned green — dives straight for the deep.Sky drops to her knees, hands in the soil. “It’s not rooting,” she whispers. “It’s searching.”For what?The answer hits the crown like a hammer.The iron.Eli stumbles back. “The bands,” he says. “They weren’t to hold it in. They were to hold something else out.”The iron bands that wrapped the root ball — first pack’s mark stamped in rust — are gone, dusted by Hope’s song. Under where they lay, the earth is hollow.A tunnel.Draven shifts, wolf rising under skin. “Trap.”“Obviously,” I say. But the new Tree is pulling, and the crown is pulling, and Jonah is already walking toward the hole, hand in Silas’.“No,” Eli snaps, grabbing Jonah. “Not you.”Silas looks down. Not scared. Remembering. “I’ve been here before,” he says. “In the hollow.
GIVEN TO THE WRONG ALPHA Chapter 46: The Buried Forest
The map is in my dreams again.Not paper. Roots.I see them under the dirt of America — thin green threads, sleeping. Not dead. Waiting. Twelve points of light, spread from Washington to Maine, from Texas to Montana.Twelve seeds. Like Hope.I wake with dirt under my nails even though I never left the bed. Draven is already dressed.“You saw them too,” he says. Not a question.The bond hums. He dreamed as the Alpha — running a forest that wasn’t there yet, wolves weaving between trees that sang.Eli is waiting in the kitchen with Jonah and Silas. Silas looks better. Human tired, not hollow tired. He’s eating actual food now. Bread. Stew. He flinches every time someone thanks him.“Twelve,” Eli says before I sit. “There were always twelve. The first pack didn’t just plant one Tree. They planted a circle. To hold the continent together.”Rowan pulls up a topographical map on his new laptop — Tree-grown casing, doesn’t fry anymore. “If you give me the points from the dream, I can overlay
GIVEN TO THE WRONG ALPHA Chapter 45: When the Seed Under the Tree Dreamed
I dream of roots.Not as Wren. As the Tree.I’m deep, deeper than stone, wrapped around something cold and black and small. The seed. Silas’ seed. The part of Null the Tree cut out a hundred years ago.It pulses.Not hungry. Lonely.I wake up gasping. Draven’s already awake, hand on his dagger, eyes on the door.“You were humming,” he says.“I wasn’t,” I say. But my throat vibrates. The crown is warm.It’s 3 a.m. The keep is quiet for the first time since the gate opened. Thirty thousand people breathing in unison sounds like wind.I get up. Draven follows without asking.We find Eli in Silas’ room. He’s not guarding. He’s sitting on the floor, back against the wall, watching Silas sleep. Jonah is curled in his lap.“He talks in his sleep,” Eli whispers. “Not words. Numbers. Coordinates.”Draven crouches. “Null coordinates?”“No,” Eli says. “Ours. Latitudes of the other Trees.”My blood goes cold. “There are no other Trees.”Eli looks at me. Young face, old eyes. “There were. Before t
GIVEN TO THE WRONG ALPHA Chapter 44: The Day After We Became a Country
Dawn in Duskbane smells like bread.Not blood. Not ash. Bread.Thirty thousand people slept on stone floors the Tree grew overnight, and Sky and Creek spent the whole night coaxing ovens out of the walls. Now the whole valley smells like a kitchen.I stand on the new wall with Draven and watch it. Families lining up for water that runs clear from rock. Kids chasing each other through wheat that wasn’t there yesterday. Guards — ours and the National Guard who walked in with the refugees — sharing coffee.Rowan comes up the stairs two at a time, laptop under his arm. He hasn’t slept.“D.C. is gone dark,” he says. “No press conferences. No statements. No flyovers. They pulled the cordon back fifty miles at 0300.”Draven frowns. “Retreat or regroup?”“Neither,” Rowan says. He turns the screen. It’s not a news feed. It’s social. Thousands of videos. #Duskbane. #WeBelieveYou. People packing cars. People walking. “They lost the narrative. The salute broke them.”The man in the suit saluting
GIVEN TO THE WRONG ALPHA Chapter 43: More
The air implodes.Not sound. Not force. Absence.Where Eli stood with Jonah, there’s nothing. No light, no dust, no boy. Just a perfect sphere of not that makes my eyes water to look at.Then it reverses.Eli stumbles back. Jonah’s in his arms. Alive. Screaming. Both of them.Silas is gone.“Close,” Eli gasps. Young voice. Hollow eyes. “Too close.”The Tree groans. Not fear this time.Approval.Good.Draven hits the courtyard at a dead run, wolf-form, skidding to a stop between Eli and the space Silas left. “Where—”“Gone,” I say. “For now.”But not far. I can feel him. Outside the gate. In the wheat. In the dark between stalks. Drinking.Moira’s dead.Ash is holding her. Collar cracked open, gray eyes staring at nothing. No hunger. No pain. No Moira.“Caiden,” I say. Voice flat. “Take her.”He doesn’t ask where. Just lifts her. Gentle. Like she was pack. She was.“Wren.” Cove’s got Jonah. The boy’s buried in his chest, shaking. “He didn’t— Eli didn’t let him—”“I know.” I touch Eli’s
GIVEN TO THE WRONG ALPHA Chapter 42: Rind
Silas stands in the doorway.Not breathing. Not needing to. Negative space with teeth, and the teeth are smiling.“Mother,” he says. “I’m home.”The Tree screams.Not words. Not weight. Fear. Old and green and deep. The roots under my feet flinch.Moira steps forward. Between me and him. Between him and thirty thousand people who don’t know they’re about to be zeroed.“You’re not,” she says. “Home’s full.”Silas tilts his head. Wrong. Too smooth. Like a puppet with no strings. “I am the other side. The after. The quiet.” He looks past her. At me. At the crown. “She ate for centuries. I will un-eat. Balance.”“Balance is bullshit,” Wrath snarls. Knife out. Thorns behind him.“Stop.” Draven’s command hits like a wall. “He’s not here. Not all of him.”He’s right. I can feel it. The thing in the doorway is a shadow. The rest of him is still in the cells. Still chained. Still pulling.This is a puppet.Made of nothing.“Rowan. Lights.”He slams the table. Backup gens kick. White floods the
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