“She was here, fighting to be empress. Facing the ghosts of her past. Yes, she still had moments of doubt and indecision. Yes, she still wrestled with her instincts versus the choices advised. But she was making choices, learning from those choices, and growing. She was taking pieces from each mistake and each horror and all of the people in her inner circle, and she was evolving.
She wasn't the old Briar Rose anymore. She hadn't been for a long, long while. Yet neither was she this new Queen Aurora.
Perhaps all these labels only hindered her. Perhaps it was far easier than they had all made it out to be.
Perhaps she was simply Briar, and what that means could change daily.”