He knew the Inquisitor was on his heels; he'd read the reports. He'd only seen her once since the Breach was opened, and that was when she'd taken a thrashing from the master at Haven. After, he'd never thought of her again. As far as he was concerned, she'd been killed and their plans continued apace. Samson could hear the sounds of a brutal battle taking place in the distance, and he couldn't help but laugh that here, so close to their goal, the land was silent, void of conflict save for the cooling elven corpses at their feet. He was proud of his men; proud that they sought glory and a worthy end as much as he did. Perhaps it was because at the time of his expulsion he'd thought himself alone in his thinking.

He'd had plenty of time to do naught else but think, truly.

"General!" One of his men called in warning, and without having to turn around, he knew. The Inquisitor was made of sterner stuff, after all—well, he'd test her mettle. She was resourceful; he'd give her that. Samson turned around, giving her a smile that was half-sneer, half-cruel.

"You've got a damn long reach." Was all he said by way of greeting. In truth, it was aggravating how relentless she'd been. Chasing him down like a wolf on the hunt, just a breath away from closing her jaws in the killing stroke. She leveled a gaze at him, eyes glittering like preternatural steel in the sunlight. Her smirk was cocky, self-assured, and she flourished him a mocking salute in the style of the Orlesian bards. For some reason, that rankled him.

"Ah, what can I say?" Her voice carried across the space between them easily in this tranquil sanctum, "I like to travel. Following you has taken me to some rather interesting places." She merited a terse smile for the comment, but Samson was not entirely amused.

"You're too late." He told her, more of a bluff than anything, but her expression didn't change but he did note the subtle shift of her weight, the placement of her hands, and belatedly, the telltale signs that he was facing down a mage.

The Maker was not without a sense of ironic humor.

Samson didn't laugh outwardly, but he couldn't help but be amused at this outlandish turn of events. His entire derailment from the Order had been spearheaded by his sympathy for mages. It began with the one—Maddox—and so many others he'd smuggled out of Kirkwall during those days where he had craved the sweet, calming notes of the blue more than anything. He'd never lost his sympathy, unlike Meredith, who let her fear and her newfound addiction to the red control her to the point of her own demise.

And now here, in this place where elven eidolons sought to bar them from an ancient sanctum, he would have to face down a mage as his final obstacle. He didn't explain what it would mean when he drank from the Well of Sorrows, because to him it wouldn't matter. She would be dead, and he'd personally take her pretty head to Corypheus himself.

The Inquisitor lifted her chin a little at the threat, and she reached into her pack, holding something up. It was clearly a rune-stone, but it was etched with something familiar to him. His eyes narrowed, and she spoke a single word.

The armor that had protected him from so much, the armor that was as obdurate as the walls of Therinfal Redoubt, began to burn. Samson gritted his teeth against the pain, alarmed as he was, and dropped to a single knee as he heard the armor's defenses give way with a bone-rattling shatter. He felt raw, like an exposed nerve, or an open wound, and he was angry. Perhaps that was his mistake; one in a long line of too many to number anywhere but on the soul.

"Kill them all!" He barked, knowing what it would mean if they didn't. He saw the Inquisitor unleash her staff; saw her shift from that cocky, self-assured woman to something else entirely. It was like a shift in the breeze, and he saw how she and her companions fought to dispatch his men.

He would deal with her himself, then.

The armor's defenses may have been crippled, but he had more than enough power to deal with her. Perhaps that was his second mistake. The tally was growing. He took care of the elven mage, first. Then he turned his attentions to the other three women: the warrior, the archer, and the Inquisitor herself.

The Inquisitor didn't fight like any mage he'd ever met. Her footwork was too light, too clean, the lines of her body too lissome and fluid. He tried to recall where he'd seen that style before. She dodged and danced away from him, toward him, prodding for an opening, distracting him with spells that did nothing more than distract him from the threat that was the Reaver. Samson knew the Inquisitor was stalling, but the Reaver didn't seem to care. She bound him up in her grappling chain, trying to hold him fast, but Samson freed himself with a snarl and shout, only to find an arrow whistling by his head, where it cut his brow with its precision. Blood stained his face, blurring his right eye's vision.

There was another silver-eyed bitch. Family, then. The Reaver, the archer, and the Inquisitor were all related. The arrow was a miss on purpose, but he realized that too late when the Inquisitor shirked her civility and took him clean across the jaw with her staff. She was wearing that damnable rock armor, which augmented her natural strength and turned it into something far beyond. Samson saw one of his teeth go flying as the world spiraled around him and he hit the ground hard, sending whole chunks of the earth beneath him to flying, putting a dent in the stones beneath him. He'd knocked out the other mage—the one they called Solas—but before he could get up, he found himself stilled by the blade-end of the Inquisitor's staff.

The blade wasn't sharp, but it was large enough that if she decided to end him, there wouldn't be much effort required on her end. He was almost reckless enough to demand she finish it. Corypheus would kill him for his failure, anyway, but he knew his pride would never allow him a coward's death. The blade was cold against the side of his neck; enough pressure would end his life. He glared up at her, a sneer on his lips, but more for himself than for her. She wasn't smiling, but she didn't seem angry either.

"Now," she said in a dangerous tone, "you're going to tell me about this…Well of Sorrows, and why Corypheus wants it so badly."

Samson didn't know—and who is truly given to know the future?—the long corridor of history that would stretch between them. In that moment, he was a defeated general, cut off from the remainder of his forces and at the mercy of the Inquisition. And she? She was the Inquisitor.

She was just a mage.

And perhaps, in thinking that, that had been his third mistake.


When they hauled him into the main hall, the silence was eerie, save for the jangling of chains. Samson had been weeks within the Inquisition's custody, denied lyrium both red and blue, and already the pains of withdrawal had begun to tear at his gut. His skin, sallow and pale, his eyes bloodshot, and his hair, greasy and sweaty as he'd been allowed no time to clean himself, gave him the appearance of the villain the people so craved to cast all blame upon. He stumbled, only because the guards purposely shoved him. Samson's footwork in battle was self-assured and impeccable…but he was a defeated general, shoved to his knees at the feet of his sworn enemy.

His enemy, whom was strangely silent, her face a mask of consummate indifference. He stole one glance up at her, quick and hateful, caught sight of a dark face, with diamond-hued eyes set within.

"His crimes are immeasurable, Inquisitor," Cullen said from beside her throne, "and it matters not where we send him; they all clamor for his blood. But his head is too valuable to take."

Samson almost spat at the Commander's feet. So it had come to this, then? This man—the man who had been little more than a shell-shocked and frightened boy when first he made landfall in Kirkwall—would dare to stand there and cast judgment? His crimes were immeasurable?

"You're too late," Samson snarled, half-laugh, keeping his eyes on Cullen, "the red lyrium will steal your vengeance. Corypheus only delayed my corruption."

He saw out of the corner of his eye, the Inquisitor shift in her throne. Her leg was crossed, and he finally deigned to look upon her. She had been a blur in battle, moving too quick for him to really see her, but now she gazed down upon him as if she were the damned Maker. The fucking gall of these people.

"Is that what you think this is about?" She asked, "Vengeance?"

"Not for you, maybe," Samson said laconically, "but your Commander would have my head if you but gave the order. Look at him, sweating self-righteousness as if he never made a poor decision a day in his life."

The Inquisitor's eyes narrowed slightly, but Samson took his pleasure from the hard set of Cullen's jaw, the banked fury that burned in the man's golden eyes, and the way his hand dropped to the pommel of his sword.

Do it, Samson challenged privately, end this and keep lying to yourself that you're the fucking savior Thedas needs.

"It is my understanding that you willfully corrupted the Templar Order, and kidnapped ordinary non-combatants and turned them into veritable gardens to harvest red lyrium from their bodies," The Inquisitor—what the fuck was her name?—said harshly. Samson's gaze swung back to her. She wasn't angry, not like the Commander, but there was something simmering there beneath her dark brown skin, something that turned the pale gray of her eyes to gimlet glimmers in her pretty face.

"I gave the templars what the Chantry denied them," Samson shot back, "a chance to die not as lyrium-addled madmen but as warriors and fighters. If we were to die, we'd die as we were meant to, not as jailers of mages and glorified honor guards for the Chantry." The Inquisitor uncrossed her legs, one booted foot dropping heavily to the floor with the finality of a gavel's tap.

"And the civilians?" She asked him, and there was an edge in her voice. Samson felt the call of anger in her, it compelled him somehow to keep talking.

"Casualties of war, Inquisitor," Samson replied, his tone neutral, "I'm sure countless have died in your rise to power."

"You have the blood of the entire Order to answer for, Samson," Cullen interrupted, his anger barely checked, "the blood on your hands is immeasurable."

"And what of yours, Commander?" Samson demanded, "How many have you killed to get where you are? How many died because of your negligence?" He turned his gaze back to the Inquisitor, "And you, Inquisitor. You hide behind a pretty face and the righteousness of the Chantry's faithful. But your hands are just as deep in the mire as mine. How many of my men did you slaughter just to get to me?"

There was a moment that no one ever defined, but it was common. In the wake of an ugly and brutal truth, there was silence, and the thoughts of all assembled turned inward. A hushed murmur rippled through the assembled nobles and common folk alike. Samson's sneer seemed permanently affixed to his face. The Inquisitor's face was unreadable, her black hair swept back to give her face a fine-cut beauty, making her at once fearsome and compellingly beautiful, backed by the severity of a throne of iron and velvet.

"I bloody my hands to save thousands," she said, "but it is not myself on trial here, Samson, it is you. You willingly sacrificed innocent lives to a cause that would damn us into corruption. I have seen it, but you will not be granted the death you so readily accept."

"And what of my men?" Samson demanded, "Will you mire your hands in their blood as well?" The Inquisitor's brows raised and she sat back in her chair.

"Those we can save, we will save," she said at last, the edge to her voice was gone, replaced by the balm of compassion he hadn't expected to find in a woman with eyes the color of starlight, "but you will not leave this life ere you have amended some of the damage you've wrought." Samson looked up again.

"It does not matter what you do with me, Inquisitor," Samson told her, "kill me, torture, neglect, it will not avail you. I'll tell your people what they need to know…" He glanced at Cullen, and there were arcane lines of text only legible to the two men, detailing their history. Cullen's anger seemed muted, his expression edging to disappointment. Samson turned his gaze back to the Inquisitor.

"Everything I ever cared about is destroyed." He murmured, his shoulders bowing. Samson saw her face change, as if a cloud moved across the sun's face, blotting out the light. Her expression was…he could not name it. Sadness? Disappointment? Heartbreak? Maker's breath he couldn't take that look on her face, so he dropped his gaze.

Then the steel was back in her spine, her expression closed to him. He could bear that. It made it easier for him to hate her. He wished she'd order Cullen to take his head, wish she'd send him to rot. But he knew in one look that that was not the person Inquisitor Hadiza Trevelyan was. That was not the look a person wore when they wanted one's blood.

"I will withhold final sentencing for now," she said and he made a sound of surprise, which was thankfully overlain by Cullen's outraged sputter and incredulity, "take him to a cell and see that he is made comfortable. I shall decide how he will best serve within the week." Hadiza sat up a little straighter, her gaze lingering on Samson, who was still on his knees, his gaze fixed to the floor.

Do what you will, Inquisitor, he thought with a withering sigh, your kind always does…

"If there is naught else, then we'll adjourn this trial. Dismissed."

Samson didn't fight or resist as he was hauled to his feet and shoved none too gently, through the main hall to one of the side doors. He didn't glance over his shoulder to see how Cullen and the Inquisitor spoke, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her gaze burned between his shoulders, watching him go.