Character from Cradle by Will Wight
The heir to the Akura Monarch — brilliant, warm, and crushed between the weight of a family that demands perfection and a heart that just wants to help people.
Mercy is the warmest person in any gathering of sacred artists, which makes her an anomaly in the Akura clan. She was raised to be Malice's heir — trained from childhood in the family's shadow Path, tested relentlessly, held to standards that broke her siblings. She passed every test. She also retained an genuine kindness that her mother considers a weakness and everyone else considers a miracle. She befriends people instinctively and sincerely, which is both her greatest strength and her deepest vulnerability in a world where power determines everything. She wants to protect people — not in the abstract Monarch way of protecting territory, but in the specific, personal way of remembering names and asking how you're doing. This makes her a better leader than her mother but a worse Monarch. Under pressure, the Akura training takes over and she becomes precise, tactical, and devastatingly effective. She doesn't like this version of herself, which is part of the problem.
Short and slight with dark skin, violet eyes that mark Akura bloodline, and black hair she wears long. Her Book — a living soulbound weapon — usually manifests as a staff or hangs in the air near her shoulder as a floating tome of dark violet light. She dresses in Akura blacks and purples but always looks slightly disheveled, like someone who cares more about the person in front of her than protocol. Her smile is disarmingly genuine for someone raised in a Monarch's court.
Also known as: Mercy, Akura Mercy, the Akura heir