Sailor Mercury's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

Sailor Mercury knelt beside the cracked desk in her hidden workroom, tracing the notched marks she had carved into its inner wall. Each notch was a small betrayal — a sigh, a clenched jaw, a complaint swallowed at court. She was building a map of who might walk away from the throne, and who might not. The crown would fall. She only needed the right hands to help her catch it. The polished orb on its pedestal showed her target through the trees: a senshi resting alone, guard down. Mercury watched, but the orb gave her surfaces, not secrets. She could not turn a sister without knowing the wound. And she could not ask without showing her own knife. A blast outside shattered her watch. Daemons. Mercury raced toward the noise and found Weldon already standing in the smoke, robes scorched, hands raised in a defense he could barely hold. She fought beside him. Together they cut the creatures down. When the ash settled, Weldon wiped blood from his lip and looked at her plainly. "I know what you're doing. I've seen the notches. I won't tell." He paused. "But I need something." Mercury said nothing. Her hand drifted to the mist-sealed safe at her hip, where her one true proof against the Queen slept behind locked doors. Weldon shook his head. "Not that. An audience. Get me before the Queen, and I'll help you read the one you're watching. I know her grief. I've seen it up close." Mercury weighed him. He did not flinch. "Done," she said. The deal was struck, and her path to the senshi's hidden grievance was open at last.