I was four, actually. Technically. [His eyes flicker up to hers.] Most people, live or die, have a chance to at least argue about what they're going to become. If I'd had a brother, I might not even have needed to become Emperor. But...age twelve, I was always going to go to a pre-military prep school. Age seventeen, the Military Service Academy. Age twenty, I reached my majority. That was always the number that loomed overhead. Twenty.

[It had been both feared and longed for, the age when Gregor could actually come into his own and start making decisions for the Imperium. The day the training wheels came off. But at age twenty, there was no going back. Not that there had been any going back before.]