Chapter 1216
“Your mother… She is… She is…” Maxine balanced on the knife’s edge between life and death. Her voice had frayed to a thread of sound, barely more substantial than breath itself, fracturing and fading between words. The night wind howled around them, swallowing everything in its path. No one else could hear. Only Elliana, with her ear sealed against Maxine’s lips, could capture these vanishing fragments.
Even then, Elliana had to marshal every shred of focus she possessed to decipher what Maxine was struggling to say.
After revealing Rita’s origins, Maxine fell silent.
Elliana leaned down and held her fingers beneath Maxine’s nose. Nothing stirred. She pressed her palm against Maxine’s chest, searching for the familiar rhythm of a heartbeat, but found only stillness.
Maxine was gone. The most formidable and iron-willed leader the Griffiths family had ever known had reached her final moment—a life painted in glory and shadow, recklessness and profound, aching solitude.
Elliana released a quiet sigh and drew a white handkerchief from her pocket, draping it gently across Maxine’s face.
She despised Maxine. Pity didn’t come easily, and perhaps it never would. But she had accepted the Sovereign’s Orb, and with it came obligations. Leading the Griffiths family, even temporarily, meant honoring the dead. Arranging the former leader’s funeral now belonged to her. Whatever darkness Maxine had carried, she deserved this last shred of dignity.
Elliana rose slowly to her feet. Sophie and Aubrie moved in unison, bowing deeply before her.
“Greetings to the new family leader,” they said, their voices hushed and reverent.
Elliana hesitated, caught off guard, before steadying herself and acknowledging them.
“There’s no need for such formality.”
The Griffiths family hadn’t shown either Sophie or Aubrie much kindness, yet they still regarded themselves as part of it. With Elliana now at the helm, it felt only right for them to acknowledge the new family leader with due respect.
Once Sophie and Aubrie straightened, they exchanged a brief, hopeful glance. Elliana might have resisted the role of the family matriarch, but for them, her ascension felt like a quiet triumph.
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Elliana’s gaze drifted to Maxine’s body, still resting in the snow, before returning to Sophie and Aubrie.
“What are the burial customs for a Griffiths leader?”
“Cremation,” Aubrie answered.
“We scatter the ashes into the sea. The exiled princess established that tradition when she rebuilt the family, and it’s been held ever since. It applies to all of us, not just the leaders.”
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