“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.

Heavy rain fell on the carriage roof, a constant staccato to the wheels' clattering on Arantha's main cobblestone road. 


"Nasty weather, sir." Rowan observed, "I'm glad I'm not the one driving the carriage tonight."


I smiled. "Ayenna threatened me with death if I let you catch a cold."


"She takes good care of me." He turned to look at me, his long blonde hair tied up in a top knot, his dark eyes studying me from a clean-shaven face. "The princess will be happy to see you, sir," he said. "Or she'll drown you."


I chuckled. "It's been three months, Rowan. She's going to drown me."


"At least you're aware of it." He tapped the windowsill on the carriage door absently. The carriage slowed to a stop, 


"Identification, please!" The voice of one of the Royal Sentinels boomed over the rain. 


"Master Lukas, returning from his trip." The carriage driver said. 


There was a few moments of silence, and then a knock on the carriage door.


Chapter 72 - Arrival