She had been wondering how long it would take before Cullen sought her out. She considered it either a testament to his restraint - or perhaps an indicator of how upset he was with her - that he managed to last a day and a half before coming to find her.

She was training with the sword again when she heard his footsteps behind her. She didn't stop to acknowledge him as he walked up, some illogical part of her brain hoping he might give up and leave her alone if she just kept at it long enough. He wouldn't, and she knew it, but she would hold out as long as she could at least.

While she'd called these exercises 'training' in her mind, it wasn't exactly the most truthful of appellations. There was nothing controlled or precise about the attacks she was using against this training dummy. She wasn't trying to perfect a form or keep her stance or improve much of anything, really.

She'd just wanted to hit something. Very hard. Repeatedly.

The practice sword struck the padded target over and over, each thunk sending a satisfying jolt up her arm. It hurt. Her arms were sore and her palms stung, but there was just something that felt right about finally letting her aggression out on this. Her mind was still twisted up in complicated decisions, but with each hit, she felt like the knots loosened. If she could just spend enough time out here working through everything, perhaps she'd figure this all out.

"Your stance is off," Cullen said quietly behind her. "I know I taught you better than that, Inquisitor."

She paused, glaring at the dummy like this was its fault as she decided whether or not she wanted to give in and turn around. With a sigh, she lowered the dulled practice sword and faced him. She forced her expression to a passive, guarded calm. She had everything under control.

"To be honest, Cullen," she said, "I don't really want to talk about my clan and Duke Antoine right now. I don't really want to talk about anything at all, actually."

"As evidenced by your rather undiplomatic handling of your opponent," he said, nodding to her target. "Would you prefer we talk about swordplay instead?" He pulled out a practice sword of his own, tossing it lightly to adjust his grip. "Would you prefer an actual sparring partner?"

She eyed him, rubbing the hilt on her sword thoughtfully as she tried to figure out what his angle was here. He wanted to talk through everything with her, and she had a very good feeling he was hoping he could bring it up if they were together. An offer to spar was a way to break the ice.

The ice that she had specifically placed between them.

If she wanted to keep her distance, she knew she should say no. But she couldn't think of any way to refuse him without being outright rude or hurtful. Her isolation had been a choice made based on her concerns, not in response to anything he had done. She didn't want to hurt him any more than she already had, especially considering that this whole mess was her fault in the first place.

Besides, she was weak. She missed him.

So, instead of responding, she fell into the proper stance this time, raising her blade to him. He followed suit, and the two slowly began to circle. He stepped to meet her first, blades coming together in a simple swing and block. She returned an attack, letting him catch her sword as well. It wasn't a true sparring match. He was a master with decades of experience and she a beginner who had started a few months ago. A true fight between them would be as short as it was unproductive as a teaching tool. Instead, they simply traded blows in an even rhythm, back and forth. An attack, a defense, a slash, a block. Controlled steps and precise movements.

She focused on letting the motions become instinctive reactions. She wanted swordplay to eventually feel like spellcasting to her. Something she didn't need to think about, something she could simply do. However, she remembered the years of practice it had taken her to reach that point with her magic, and she knew it would likely take even longer before she became comfortable with the sword.

Cullen never pushed her too hard, never came at her too quickly, and yet she didn't feel like he was going too easy on her either. His pace was steady, but not too challenging. He kept her right at the edge of her skill. Of course, what was challenging for her was simple to him. Fending off his attacks took her full attention, but he probably barely needed to think about what he was doing.

"I'm not upset that you didn't tell me about your clan," he said, voice quiet and steady despite the physical exertion. "I was, at first. But it wasn't my business to know. I want you to know that I'm not angry with you for that."

She realized that this had most likely been his intention. Originally she had thought he would try to bring up the topic between bouts, but no such luck. By keeping her focus on the training, he had an advantage, an opportunity for conversation. Her defenses were lowered, like this. She needed to concentrate on what she was doing, and she didn't have near as much ability to get out of the conversation or keep him at bay the way she normally would.

"It wasn't that." The remark was punctuated with a small grunt as she was nearly too slow with a parry, his blow catching her wrist at an odd angle. Talking in the midst of this was manageable, but she couldn't let herself think too hard about it. "It's just… It happened so long ago, it seems. Months. We were back in Haven at the time, and I… I didn't have anyone. Yes, I was an ally of the Inquisition, but there was a part of me that still worried that I would be dragged away in shackles at any moment to stand trial for the murder of the Divine. I wasn't close to you then, not like we are now."

He pursed his lips. "Like we are now."

She frowned at that, feeling the comment like an accusation against the way she'd been treating him since she'd returned to Skyhold. It was deserved, she would admit, but it still hurt. She pretended to not have heard it.

"After that, there wasn't a good time to bring it up. Josephine knew because she'd been the recipient of the Duke's letter, and Leliana knew because she's Leliana, I assume, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything to anyone else. To be honest, I tried to avoid thinking about it. We had enough responsibilities to keep me occupied and… it hurt less that way."

She changed rhythm to execute a quick flurry of three strikes against him, each of which he blocked easily. A triplet amongst the quarter-note clangs they'd been tapping out thus far. "When Leliana found out Antoine was behind it," she continued, "I didn't have time to think about what I was doing. I just left. I couldn't think of anything other than getting ahold of him as quickly as possible. I know, I should have explained things to you, but I was afraid it would take too long. I was afraid that if I started to talk about what had happened, I would end up pulling myself back to where I was in Haven, and I didn't have the time or energy to put myself back there. I didn't want to go back to feeling like that. I thought if I could just push forward, just hold onto the purpose of apprehending Antoine, that that could be enough. But it was unfair of me to leave you in the dark in order to accomplish that."

He mulled her words over in silence, not breaking the cadence of their practice, though her flourish had encouraged him to make his maneuvers slightly more complex as well. Hit, hit, hit-tap-hit, hit, hit, tap-tap hit. "I understand," he said finally. "As I said, I'm not upset."

"About that, at least," she said, putting a little more force than necessary behind her next swing.

He gave her an even look, pausing just briefly to do so. An outside observer likely wouldn't have noticed, but within the steady pattern of the exercise, the hesitation stood out. "I'm not upset," he said slowly. "I'm worried about you. You haven't seemed like yourself since you returned."

Something about that phrasing pricked at her. She ignored the feeling, forcing her frustration out through the strikes. The clangs grew louder as she put more force behind her movements, not even thinking about what she was doing. "I'll be fine," she said, voice hard. "This will all be over as soon as Antoine has been dealt with."

His eyes flicked to her sword, noting the increased aggression. "That's part of what I'm worried about. How are you planning on dealing with him exactly?"

"I don't know, okay?" Her tone slipped away from her by the end of that sentence, drifting towards a shout. She caught herself before she lost her temper, pulling in a slow, tense breath to try to calm herself down. She stepped back, breaking away from the exercise and lowering her sword. If they were going to have this conversation - and it seemed they unfortunately were - she needed her full attention. "I seem to remember explicitly saying that I didn't want to talk about this."

He lowered his sword as well. "Do you think it's something you need to talk about, though?"

His voice was calm and non-aggressive, but it sounded too much like a criticism for her to stomach. "Fine! Do you want to know what I really want to do?" The words were snapped and harsh, and deep down she knew he didn't deserve to be treated like this, but she couldn't bring herself to care. "I want him to suffer. I don't want him simply pried at for information; I want him punished, thoroughly. I want to be the one holding the knife while I make him feel every bit of pain that he put my clan through. I want him to feel the pain he put me through. Until it's more than he can endure, until he begs for the death he deserves. And when I finally grant it, I want him to know it is out of no sense of mercy, and only because his death serves to remove the stain of him from the world."

She was breathing heavily by the end of her tirade, far more than the training would have justified. She wanted him to be mad at her for shouting, wanted him to yell back. To parry her verbal strike as he did with the physical, and return one of his own against her. A different kind of sparring through which she could let her frustration out.

But he didn't deflect this attack, he didn't raise his defenses against her. His expression held nothing but concern, and that fact only served to frustrate her further. She'd thrown everything she'd had into it, and he hadn't raised a finger to stop this blow, taking the full brunt of her anger and offering no retaliation. She felt awful, guilty for losing control, but the stronger part said that he'd pushed her into this conversation, that she'd told him she needed to be alone and he'd dragged this out of her. It was unquestionably her fault, but all she could feel was that it was his.

"Sylvanni," his voice was gentle, but she would have preferred if he'd shouted at her.

She held up her hands, tearing her eyes away from him in a wave of ashamed anger. "No, no I can't do this. I'm sorry, but I'm done training for the day."

She dropped the practice sword to the stones with a jarring clatter, knowing it was a childish move, but she needed to be away from here, away from him. As she turned to stalk away, she saw him reach forward, as if he might clasp her arm and hold her back, keep her there where he could help her work through everything she was facing. She knew he wished to help fix what she was going through, just as he'd done before, to correct her stance on this just like he had with the sword. A part of her wanted to let him, to let him work through all the adjustments her mind needed to make until she felt steady on her feet once more.

But he pulled back, hesitating just as he had before, and for once she was glad for it, leaving him behind without a backwards glance.