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It was a commonly accepted untruth that only the living could confer a soulmark.
Certainly, only the living could receive a soulmark. Even I, with all my familiarity with the dead, had never seen a new mark bloom on a corpse, and I had had occasion to both see and touch many.
Witnesses vel ama for the Dead received marks from both the living and the dead.
I had been one of the lucky ones; my first mark from the dead had been on my hand. I had met another Witness whose first touch—the way they had learned of their abilities, their first brush with the dead—had been a slip into the grave of a relative, and half their face had made contact with the corpse's skin.
No one knew why Witnesses vel ama received soulmarks from the dead—deathmarks, as some called them in more superstitious circles—only that we did, though some disbelieved in both them and us entirely.
One of my parishioners in Aveio had thought it a side effect of my ability to speak to the dead, as if soul touched soul, but the mark only took on I who was still alive to be affected. And yet a Witness's duty was to act upon the world on the dead's behalf, so I thought if it were truly that, a mark should take on the dead as well.
Others thought it a separate sign from Ulis, something physical to complement the more spiritual aspect of our ability. I thought little of that explanation, predicated as it was on the ironic lack of faith on the part of the believer.
Unlike most soulmarks received from the living, marks from the dead would fade over time, first to grey and then entirely. I was not sure whether that was part of the nature of the calling of a Witness, as we transitioned in and out of people's stories, and they in and out of ours, or if it had something to do with the nature of the marks themselves.
It was helpful, though, to be able to remove my gloves and show only a scattering of marks.
Subpraeceptor Azhanharad reacted anyways, his ears dipping in disdain before he recovered himself. We had not touched, skin to skin, and I doubted we ever would. But despite his discomfort, he had asked me here to witness.
I touched a finger to the corpse of the unknown lady, and we drowned together in the canal.
I had received many marks from the dead in my time as a Witness vel ama. I had received far fewer from the living.
I had some from my family. As befitted their standing in Ethuverazhin high society, the marks were pale, nothing more meaningful than the requisite connection of blood and bone.
Novices were not outright discouraged from touching skin to skin, but as we could be sent anywhere at a moment's notice at the whims of the prelacy, sharing marks was not exactly encouraged, either.
I had still managed to receive a few marks during my novitiate. All of them were pale, faint things. The marks I had left in return were always pale as well. It had scared some to receive my mark, with how near to grey it was, though closer to white than the real grey of death.
My Evru had seen what others had not: That there was a color to my mark on him, a pearlescent blue almost indistinguishable to the naked eye.
It had been clearest on him of anyone I had ever marked; perhaps that was why he had seen it.
Evru had marked me strongly in return. It had been a deep garnet red, the color of his blood when it had spilled from the executioner's block. His mark was grey now, as all marks turned when the giver died.
(Evru's wife's mark on me had not faded, though it had turned grey, as all marks given directly from the dead eventually did. It reached up my arm nearly to my elbow, as if trying to get to Evru's own mark where it rested on my shoulder.)
I had not touched anyone skin to skin since Evru. No one but the dead.
The mark I received from the lady I later learned was Min Arveneän Shelsin was a deep muddy green, almost swamp-like, and reached halfway up my palm.
My glove, threadbare though it was, hid it well enough. It did not hide it from my thoughts. I knew the pulsing in my hand was not real, and yet I felt it anyways, an unnecessary reminder of my calling, my duty, my—not my drowning.
Following the thread of Min Shelsin's murder brought me to the Vermilion Opera.
The entrance was imposing. The lobby was even more impressive, and yet I barely saw it, for it was red, deep, blood red, not the color of Evru's mark but close, too close. For a moment I was—
“Can I help you, othala?” asked a half-goblin man, young, whom I had not seen until he spoke.
I drew in a breath.
“My name is Thara Celehar,” I said, and somehow I sounded whole. “I am a Witness for the Dead."
I did not feel anything unusual upon meeting Iäna Pel-Thenhior for the first time.
It was to be expected, of course; one did not touch skin to skin upon meeting someone for the first time in Ethuverazhin society, and claims that one could tell a person was destined to leave a mark upon one's skin were the domain of far-fetched wonder-tales. And it was frowned upon for prelates to touch, besides, even if it was not an official stance.
I had heard that goblins raised in Barizhan found the Ethuveraz standoffish and uptight. Some cultures considered soulmarks something to be proud of, to show off.
Soulmarks meant that one would have an effect on another; would live a bright, vibrant life, being effect in return. The deeper the mark, the stronger the impact.
A lover or spouse might mark their partner; a child, deeply mark a parent; one good friend mark another, and keep that friend for life.
A harsh overseer might strike a worker, to be dead the next week. A Csaiveiso might lay a gentle hand on the forehead of an ill patient, leaving a soulmark behind, for that patient to be as deeply marked by the illness as by the soulmark itself.
(A lover might mark their partner.)
Not all marks were a sign of something good.
The second time I met Iäna Pel-Thenhior, he smiled at me, and I felt… something.
I had returned to the Opera the same evening, following my calling and the tingling pull of Min Shelsin's mark, which had already started to fade from its ugly swamp-green to the grey of death. The Opera looked different at night, lit up against Amalo's dark backdrop, and this time I was braced for my attack of sentiment upon entering. Mer Pel-Thenhior had been true to his word, and I was allowed in despite not having a ticket nor the funds to acquire one.
The man himself entered not long after I had sat down.
It was not only the smile that did it—though it was part of it, I thought. But there was something about him, clad in blue and silver in a stark contrast to the Vermilion's namesake red, something about the easy and open way his ears lifted and his eyes brightened at the sight of me.
"You came!" he said, and even that sounded real.
I had not touched someone living, skin to skin, in at least a year. I was not thinking of doing something so reckless as asking to touch Mer Per-Thenhior.
But I wondered, before I could bury the thought, what color his hand might leave on someone's skin.