Eliana turned away. “I don’t know how to be anyone’s hope.” Navi touched her cheek, turning her back. “You’re mine already. Did you know that? I’ve prayed to you all my life, before I knew your face. And since I learned who you are, I’ve prayed to you instead. You, Eliana, the Sun Queen of my prayers and my dreams. I lie here in this stinking bed as Fidelia’s poisons eat me alive, and I think of you and pray to you, and when I do that, I feel a lightness in my heart that helps me bear the rest of it. For even if I die, you will live on, and you will ride into the Emperor’s city on a steed of
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