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Cullen muttered a curse under his breath as he hurried along the ramparts back to his tower office, hoping that he still had time to spare and more than a little annoyed that his morning training session had run longer than he had anticipated. On any other day, he would be glad to dedicate all his time and attention on ensuring the Inquisition soldiers were operating at peak condition. In this particular instance, however, he had been hoping to finish training on time. Finishing early would have been doubly appreciated. As it stood, however, he would just have to get to his destination as quickly as possible and hope that she would forgive him.
He almost ran headlong into the door in his rush to open it. “Nan, I’m so sorry I’m late, I…”
Cullen stopped short, freezing in the doorway with his hand still resting on the doorknob. Within the room, his desk was in the same state of disarray that it had been in when he’d left that morning. Various reports and scraps of paper still littered its surface. An occasional book served as impromptu paper weights for some of the taller stacks of paperwork. Near the center of the desk, his mantle still remained in the somewhat crumpled bundle he’d left it in prior to retiring the previous evening. However, during the time he had been preoccupied on the training grounds, a new addition to the desk had appeared.
The Inquisitor sat in Cullen’s desk chair, though her face was partially obscured due to being burrowed in the folds of the mantle. Her eyes were closed, her lashes casting long shadows across her freckled cheekbones, and her breathing was slow and even.
His heart gave an uneasy flip in his chest as he watched her. In the short time he had known her, Cullen knew that Enansal did not allow herself to be vulnerable. She always served others’ needs before her own, often to the point of exhaustion. It was an unfortunate habit that they shared. Seeing her asleep at his desk, snuggled with his mantle, he couldn’t help but take note of just how peaceful she looked. Although the two struggled to find time to spend with each other, the Commander was loathe to wake her. It was a small gesture, but he decided that he would at least let her have this rare moment for herself.
With a gentle smile on his face, Cullen stepped back out on the ramparts and closed the door behind him.