**CHAPTER TWENTY?FOUR

  “The Elder’s Last Stand”**

  The tunnel bent sharply into a jagged, ice?ribbed throat that plunged deeper into the mountain. The hive’s hum vibrated through the stone, pulsing faster, sharper, as if sensing prey drawing farther away.

  The Primordial’s roaring scrape echoed behind them — closer than ever.

  Anna felt Lena trembling in her arms, her small hands clamped over her ears, her lips whispering, “I don’t want to hear them—I don’t want to—”

  She didn’t have time to soothe her.

  They ran.

  Lukas up front, small silhouette darting over uneven rock. Anna behind him, clutching Lena tight. Dietrich trailing last, cane clacking on stone.

  Until his cane stumbled.

  “Elder!” Anna hissed. “Keep moving!”

  Dietrich tried. God, he tried. But he was older than the mountain itself seemed, lungs crackling with frost, legs buckling beneath exhaustion and fear.

  His breath tore out raggedly. “Anna—go.”

  “No,” she whispered fiercely. “We go together.”

  Behind them, stone shattered.

  The Primordial rounded the bend.

  Massive. Bent. Filament veins glowing under its skin.

  It filled the tunnel like a nightmare pressed into human shape.

  Anna screamed for Lukas to move. “RUN!”

  But Lena’s body went rigid in her arms — eyes rolling, breath hitching. The hive hummed differently now, vibrating in a pitch only she could hear.

  Anna stopped cold.

  “Lena—stay here, baby—stay with me—”

  Lena whispered through tears, “Mama… it’s calling me by name.”

  Dietrich saw Anna freeze.

  He saw the Primordial advancing.

  He saw the tunnel narrowing ahead into a choke point — a place where one body could block the path entirely.

  And he understood.

  In a heartbeat.

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  In a way only a man who had already lost himself in grief and fear could understand.

  “Anna.”

  She looked at him — eyes wide, terrified, pleading.

  Dietrich gave the smallest smile she’d ever seen on him.

  “You keep them alive.”

  Before she realized what he intended—

  Dietrich shoved Anna and the children forward with all his remaining strength.

  “GO!”

  “DIETRICH—NO—!”

  The Primordial lunged.

  And the Elder turned to face it.

  He planted his cane in the center of the narrowing tunnel, bracing his legs against the stone.

  He stood tall.

  “T?chterli,” he whispered to Lena, “you must live. You must out?run this darkness.”

  Lena screamed, “NO!”

  Dietrich struck the wall with the base of his cane.

  Cracks splintered through the stone — the tunnel walls groaning as dust rained down.

  He lifted his lantern.

  Held it high.

  And faced the Primordial Head?on.

  “You want a voice?” he spat, trembling with fury and defiance. “TAKE MINE.”

  The Primordial roared, a booming, ancient howl of cold hunger.

  Dietrich smashed the lantern against the wall.

  Fire erupted—

  –thin, weak, but enough. Flame kissed the filaments running through the tunnel. The parasite recoiled, shrieking its unnatural rage.

  Anna felt the blast of heat behind them as she pulled the children deeper into the tunnel.

  “No—no—DIETRICH!” she sobbed, twisting to look back.

  Through the flames she saw him—

  Legs shaking Arms spread wide Body silhouetted against fire Staring down a creature older than memory

  And then the Primordial struck.

  The impact broke stone.

  The tunnel shook violently.

  The ceiling cracked.

  Rock sheared downward like collapsing teeth.

  Anna dragged Lukas and Lena around the bend—just as the tunnel behind them caved in with a deafening roar.

  Dust and embers blasted around her.

  The hive’s hum faltered. The Primordial’s scream cut into static. Stone sealed the passage in a storm of ice and rubble.

  And Elder Dietrich was gone.

  Anna collapsed against the wall, clutching her children close as tears streamed down her face.

  Lukas sobbed silently.

  Lena buried her face in Anna’s neck. “Mama… he saved us. He saved us…”

  Anna could barely breathe.

  Through clenched teeth she whispered, “He bought us time. We will not waste it.”

  Beyond the rubble, deep in the buried tunnel, something thundered. Something alive. Something furious at being denied its prize.

  The Primordial wasn’t dead.

  Not yet.

  But Dietrich’s sacrifice… that moment of fire in the mountain’s frozen heart…

  …had bought Anna’s family precious minutes.

  Minutes to escape. Minutes to plan. Minutes to live.

  Anna rose on shaking legs.

  “Come,” she whispered to her children. “We keep moving.”

  They fled into the dark, carrying Elder Dietrich’s memory with them—

  and the unstoppable knowledge that the parasite would never stop hunting the child it believed was its destined voice.