Chapter Text
Epilogue
“Do you still want to know where the honey came from?”
“Of course.”
“Cassa gave it to me. It was comb from her blessed hives.”
“What?”
Immakuk looked back at Ennikar, clearly startled, and Ennikar just barely resisted the urge to preen; that he could still surprise his friend after all this time was a source of no small delight.
“Cassa gave me the honey, but as with all gods-given gifts she did not give it to me for free.”
“What was the cost?”
Ennikar tipped his head from side to side. “Not a cost, not exactly. A…directive. I had to be very careful, she said. I could eat it all myself, and maybe all the blessings would settle in me. But then again, maybe not. The only way to be sure of receiving the blessings she offered, she said, was to share them with another. Only when shared would the bounty truly take root in my heart, and the heart of my chosen one.”
Immakuk was standing very still, watching Ennikar with a complicated expression on his noble face, head tilted ever so slightly to the side as he searched Ennikar’s eyes with his single good one.
“I know what you are thinking,” Ennikar said, and closed the distance between them to look into Immakuk’s face. “But it was neither Cassa nor her blessed honey that created the bond between your heart and mine. That was why she cautioned me so stridently. If I shared her blessings with the wrong person the blessings would be wasted, would flow out of me as easily as I had let the waters of Nuri flow out into the world, and I would be left with nothing. And so, her blessing sat on me as heavy as a curse, and I thought I was doomed to wander lonely forever until Shesmegah in her great mercy brought our paths to cross.”
“And so it was that you learned about blessings denied and blessings shared,” Immakuk said, smiling at him, a light shining in his face to rival the beams of the sun.
“Yes,” Ennikar said simply, and reached for his hand.
A little ways off, the bright horses of Anet tossed their fiery manes and stamped at the ground, restless in their traces. The river was running faster now, the mist burned away by the rays emanating from the golden chariot. Too fast, too strong, the water beginning to overreach its banks, soon it would rage and spill over into the land of mortals. Ennikar pulled at Immakuk’s hand and together they sprinted the little distance to the chariot, leapt aboard and took up the reins. They could make out the gates of heaven in the distance so they pulled the horses around and gave them their heads as they sprang into the sky.