There's more than a little deja vu inherent in standing on the site of the erstwhile Kirkwall Chantry and having a mage snap to frightened attention at his command. It's a level of power he'd initially taken as his rightful and holy due, then gradually become unnerved by, and now--

Templars don't have that sort of power anymore. If they did, his room in the barracks wouldn't have become Kirkwall's new death row. If mages didn't know damn well that they held the power now, if they weren't so gleefully determined to turn the tables because they can, nobody would be fearing for Cade's life over a scuffle that didn't even leave bruises. He can't pretend that the fear on this stranger's face doesn't feel good, feel right, if only for a moment.

Then reality reasserts itself, and he realizes that mage or no, he's menacing a blind man a foot shorter than he is. Some champion of the just he must look, right now. He rubs his eyes with weary shame, as long as the mage can't see the brief lapse of discipline.

"What are those runes for?" He doesn't want to cleanse them without provocation and risk damaging the trees, but neither does he trust them.