“Do you weep for me, my teacher?” She whispered. I pressed my lips to her shaking hand and was transported back to when I first met her thirty years earlier.
“Yes, majesty. I weep for you.” I replied.  “And I weep for my soul. I failed to protect you, and I deserve damnation for it.”
My queen smiled, her blood-spattered face serene in the red haze of blood and smoke. “No, 
Lukas, you have fulfilled your duty. And you will serve me again in the glorious halls of our gods.”
“With all my heart,” I whispered. 
Tears glittered in her eyes, “Call me by my name?” She asked, her voice quiet, weak. “Like you did when I was a little girl.”
“Anna.”

At the end of the world, a mage held his student in his arms as the light left her eyes. At the end of the world a mage stared down his attacker. At the end of the world, a mage died. 
And woke up thirty years before the end of the world. 
He's been given a second chance. 
And this time he's going to do it right.

I sat beside the princess, staring up at the sky, the fire crackling in front of us. 


"He's amazing." Anna was saying, dodging and weaving back and forth in her seat. 


"He's a bastard is what he is." I said, rubbing my wrists. 


"How did he use my spell against me? Is he a mage?"


I shook my head. "No, no, he's not a mage, it's just a peculiarity of his people. He's from the Shattered Palace. They were a nation right in the middle of the Empire. Well, more a house than a nation. The whole country was split into diverging bloodlines, all of which descended from a race of mortals that were immune to magic. Their blood has been watered down over the centuries, so instead of being immune to magic, Rowan is a spellbreaker. He can manipulate the weave and redirect any magic thrown at him."


I shook my head. "No, highness. He's the last one."


Chapter 45 - Chapter 44