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The first thing Hissrad notices about the Inquisitor is that his mark hurts.
Not many people know pain better than Ben-Hassrath, the way it bites into bone and twists muscles into knots. There is always a tell for every injury: a slight spasm, a shift of the weight taken off one side of the body, a hitch of breath as nerves flare unexpectedly.
This observation is almost immediately followed with a resolve to use it, to exploit such a blatant weakness of his enemy. He fills it out for later, when he is inevitably asked to betray the Inquisition in the name of the Qun. It is not useful now, but later... He knows how it works.
Anything to give you an edge.
It takes time for him to notice it again, because by then he is not looking, happy in his ignorance. He was always a fool like that.
At first it is just a tic, a useless flick of the wrist, something all mages do when they cast, one way or another. (Dorian is a repeat offender of such things, entirely useless and awfully pretty, and the bastard knows it.) Trevelyan did it before, of course, and Bull racks his brain to pinpoint every time it happened: always right after he closed a rift, and the green sparkles fell to show his hand whole and well. Now, they leave lines on his face and shadows under his eyes. It is still there when the Inquisitor smiles, when Dorian's fingers tangle in his hair, when Bull's hands leave him breathless.
Ben-Hassrath always know when the breaking point comes, but knowledge is useless when no hope remains.
The last time he sees it, Inquisitor's entire arm is alight with Fade magic, the cracks in his skin spasming and spreading. Trevelyan looks dead at this point, a mess of blood, sweat and tears, but still not breaking. And then Bull realizes he got it all wrong the first time round, and the second was almost as bad.
It's like his eye, damaged and unseeing, and the best thing that happened in his entire life.
The Iron Bull raises his axe and cuts.