With nothing further to say, the princess left the steward's chamber, making her way through corridors she had walked her entire life with a new sense of purpose.  She felt as she imagined a hunting lioness would feel.  The secrets she carried in her mind, the secret at her breast, empowered her, made her feel every inch the Queen, the Empress, she knew she would one day be.  Even servants who she did not deign to notice remarked upon the change in Aurora, and, in some part of their minds, trembled with unnamed fears at the black shape of future years.<br/><br/>In the Royal Chambers, the princess went to the apartments used by the Baroness and her staff, and stopped only when guarded doors barred her way.  The soldiers, mercenaries, in truth, were liveried in the symbols of the late Baron of the Lakes, and answered to the Baroness, not her or her father, and it galled her that she had to request entry to meet with her brother, in the company of that. . .vile woman.