Vortigern moves as she does, first to get to his feet so that he can best bring her to hers. Embattled might be a good way to describe him; with time, with the elements, with himself, bright eyes tired and his garments less fine than she is accustomed to seeing. He wears leathers and fur, a cloak he removes from his shoulders to wrap around her. Coarse wolf fur tickles her throat. It is warm. It should be warmer.

Around them is a land unfamiliar to her. Mountains capped with ice loom in the distance, in shapes and configurations she's never seen. The forest is winter-bitten and hardy, the lake half-iced.

He glances back at the water before he puts his arm around her, guiding her from flat rock to beaten earth. "We're far from Camelot," he says, quiet. "From England. In a land far east, by my measure, on which no Briton has yet tread."