The thirty-minute grace period had expired, and in Relik's opinion it was the shortest half hour he'd ever had. Maybe they should have granted him a day or two, just enough time for him to enjoy this city.
Unfortunately, Potaan seemed brutally efficient when it came to conviction
He just hoped he didn't have to see it action.
Relik was dragged and tossed onto the stone floor. He could feel his skin grate against the rocky surface as he slid to a stop. He worked himself onto his knees and three glances around the room to map his surroundings.
He marked the faces of the audience, including Logun who stared back at him displeased.
The room itself resembled a hollowed-out bell, the walls were fluted obsidian, rising hundreds of feet to a single, jagged skylight that let in the grey, mocking light of the Potaan morning. Though it appeared clean his nostrils were still bombarded by the scent of old blood.
A heavy hand landed at Reliks back then tossed him towards the room's epicenter.
At the furthest end sat Shiear Hukaam, an Alven whose features were as jagged as the very cliffside that the city was built upon. To his right sat his Lead Advisor, his eldest daughter it seemed, a woman whose sharp, aristocratic features were clouded by a flicker of genuine agitation. Her face carrying an unexpected glow of anticipation, as though she didn't care about the outcome, only that she saw someone suffer.
Off to Relik's side was the owner of the heavy hand. It was was a Hurc, a hand? The very first Hurc hand he'd seen.
Relik silently admitted that if this was the instrument that would be used to mediate the city's rage, then he would prefer death.
And in the "neutral" seat, was a Shahari draped in the embroidered coat of the Shiears.
At this point any fleeting sight of hope had fully evaporated itself. As the neutral party was a colleague of the accuser.
The neutral Shiear smiled at him and offered a curt nod, eyes closed in polite fashion. Relik instinctively mirrored the gesture, him potentially dying where he stood, but did not excuse impolite behaviour.
The Hurc Hand pulled Relik up onto his knees. The cold-iron shackles bit into his wrists, draining the warmth from his arms.
Hukaam didn't wait for the formalities. He leaned forward, his Iké so overwhelming potent that Relik could sense it from across the room.
Relik ignored it, believing this to be silent posturing. Not that he could ever feel intimidated by this, given that just over a month ago he watched twenty-two children his age violently die no more than fifteen feet away from him. His lack of reaction seemed to work as the Alven sunk into his seat once more.
"My son," Hukaam's voice was a low rasp, "Did he die fighting?"
The question hung in the air, cold and sharp. Relik's mind flashed back to the mud, the screaming, and the sight of Jace, the supposed golden boy who was supposed to be a hero, scrambling away with a look of pure, unadulterated terror.
Relik hesitated. His throat felt like it was filled with glass. There was no way that his honesty would grant him forgiveness.
So naturally he seeked the silent council of his secondary mentor.
Logun caught his gaze, squinting before giving the boy a singular nod.
Relik looked back up at the Shiear gathering seventeen years' worth of confidence before separating his lips. He could feel his throat still tense and dry but forced the word out of himself.
The pending response caused him to tremble under the weight of his own honesty, "he died fleeing."
The silence that followed was absolute. For three seconds, the only sound was the howling wind outside the Spire.
Then, the world exploded.
Before Relik could even draw a breath, a massive Hurc Hand in a blur of green skin contacted his abdomen. A fist the size of his head nestled itself just under the boy's sternum. Leaving him in such a shock that his body forgot how to breathe.
Relik hunched over his mouth mimicking the movements of a fish out of water. As soon as he began regaining control of his lungs, he was hit again. For a moment he bit back at the lack of air, but purely out of disdain for preparing weak he ignored it. With his lungs still disabled, he ignored the pain and rose to his feet.
Logun shook his head, but had a wide smile with expectant eyes, equally as wide.
That was the last thing Relik saw before he was grabbed by his collar and was slammed back first onto the floor.
"This is obviously blasphemy," the advisor said without any real conviction, "what do you think Vanqis?"
"I think we should ask him again when his lungs start working," came the calm response from the neutral guest.
Relik gasped but pulled himself into a seated position, so that he could stare right at the Shiear.
Vanqis smiled, "sooner than I thought."
In Rému he was treated as an equal and then offered a job. Here, they seemed more interested in killing him than receiving a report from a witness.
"Fleeing you say?" Hukaam asked, his volume seemed to ascend two levels, "You expect this court to believe that my son, the most sought-after recruit for last month's trial, fled?"
Relik could feel his eyebrows tighten as he made the decision of non-compliance. They cared little about his perspective, and for that he was not willing to spend any time grovelling.
He had watched his concerns pushed aside in Rému in favour of giving him employment. At least they were polite enough about their ignorance to distract him for a bit. In Potaan he was nothing more than a sentient piece of furniture.
"I was there, I saw," Relik drawled in between breaths, "I came back alive."
Relik caught sight of Logun smiling before he was struck again, this time far harder than the last.
Surprisingly it didn't hurt that much anymore, given that if his body could process anymore pain, then it would surely kill itself. He just laid back in the crater that the last impact had caused.
"The accused clearly has nothing to hide, and you know this," Logun finally decided to do the very thing he came here to do.
"Alright then," the advisor jumped in, "say we give this bastard the benefit of the doubt. What exactly happened to Jace? Do you have any more information than 'he died fleeing'?"
"Well next time, how about we ask more questions instead of swinging first?" Logun asked.
Relik ignored it all and forced himself into a seated position.
"We were attacked by Shink-Ra, four of them," he explained ignoring his own lie to protect his integrity, "and I don't know what other cities teach their kids, but they seemed to not be aware of how outclassed they were. They rushed in and died one by one; we didn't even have time to retreat properly."
Vanqis followed immediately with another question, "why did you live?"
Relik's head dropped a bit, "I've been asking myself the exact same thing."
"Answer the question boy," the advisor tried expediting his response."
"They back away as though I was diseased then asked to see my hands."
The three figures looked at each other, choosing to whisper their concerns than to inform the collective outright. Once it met its end Hukaam flicked his wrist in code to the Hurc hand, who without a moment's hesitation, grabbed Relik by the back of his shirt then shook him until he was torn out of his garments.
The boy fell face first onto the floor, before being yanked into a standing position by the masked hand.
The advisor rolled her eyes and Hukaam sighed at the sight of his exposed skin.
"That isn't temple work at all," Vanqis smiled as he rose to his feed, the group watching in silence as he walked across the room. The sound of his shoe heel bouncing off the walls in the mostly empty room.
He stopped at the boy, tilting his head and nodding to himself.
Relik could hear him whispering as he ran his hands across his collar bones, his eyes tracing each line.
The boy looked to Logun for help, who shrugged, equally confused at what was taking place.
After another moment of inspection, he took a full step back, before slowly nodding as he reached into his coat pockets. Collecting a small sack of what Relik assumed to be currency.
Vanqis tossed it across the room and into the hands of the advisor, "I can't find any wrongdoing on this child's part, and I implore you to share the same opinion."
Hukaam shook his head, as the advisor swiped the purse from on the table.
"Sorry Hukaam my old friend," Vanqis apologized, "but I have always and will always hold science above any politics."