He feels joy like heartbreak when his hands find other hands, arms, hair, clothing. Stronger than a man ought to be, Vortigern drags the thrashing body out and onto snow-dotted rock, half-collapsed over her. The taste of magic in the air dims. His cold hand holds her face, tipping it aside as brackish water gutters out of her lungs. That grip turns to touch, and then hover.

Vortigern hadn't wanted to lie to her, in those last moments. It's the kind of memory he ignored like a wound left unattended, leaking its poison, but he remembers it clearly now. Her kindness, her warmth. That he'd wept, even before she had died.

(Had died. Like he had not wielded the blade.)

No blades now, only hands, pushing aside her hair, fending off spasmodic struggles, rapid-blinking. "Elsa," he says, when her eyes open. He has changed, but his voice hasn't, not really. A touch huskier. Ageless in the past decades, she has otherwise changed too. Her skin is white with cold, the insides of her lips touched blue, her hair clinging like kelp.