“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 knocked on the king's door, with the Royal Chaplain in tow. 


I opened the door to see the king standing in front of one of the bookshelves. 


He was putting a rather hefty tome back on the shelf. 


"Ah, Quarren too I see. What brings you here?"


The Royal Chaplain swallowed, and bowed. "I don't know, sire. Lukas won't tell me."


"You need to hear this, Quarren, and so does the king. I would prefer if the queen were here too."


The king raised an eyebrow. "It's that serious?" He said. 


"I'm afraid so, sire. Would it be possible to send for her?"


"Sean?" The king called. Soon a middle-aged man, with a bristly salt and pepper moustache, and a receding hairline stepped into the room. 


"Sire?" He asked, his eyes scanning the room quickly. 


"Go and get Tila, will you? Tell her Lukas has something important to tell us."


Chapter 86 - A vow. A promise.