I rolled upright and sat on the edge of my bed, I stretched my hands and legs and leaned over to put on my shoes. As I tied the laces, the sun started trickling in from my window, I walked over to my workstation and began mixing up the spell. One part this. Two parts that. Mix four times. I went through my routine methodically and got everything prepped while meditating on my marks and getting them ready for their part. As I finished up, I tapped the mixer on the side of the bowl and set it aside on the desk. Slowly I picked up the bowl and poured the contents carefully into my hand. The golden-brown powder sat in my palm and I curled my fingers over it to not lose any of the grains. 

I pushed the chair out from behind me and walked over to my window. When I had moved in to this building, the Elders had made sure to put me in a room on the top floor so I could do my job. I reached the windowsill and braced myself against the windowpane. The grains shifted ever so slightly in my hand as I pumped energy into the mixture from the marks on my palm; slowly they started to glow bright with a burnished gold light and vibrate gently against each other. I pulled my focus up to the marks on my neck and face and poised my hand in front of my mouth. Taking a deep breath I concentrated the energy that the marks were generating into one powerful exhale, blowing the grains out the window and across the cityscape where they finally made contact with the tower in the center of the city where they would be projected into the sky, reinforcing the shield. I brushed my hands together and watched intently as the mixture hit the shield in a shower of sparks; the sun was just starting to rise over the walls.

I turned back around and meandered to the center of my room where I had laid out my clothes for the day. I pulled on my pants and fastened the belt, I was not ever allowed to wear a shirt. My marks extended across the full length of my torso and they were to be shown off always. Crumpled on the bed was my mask, I reached over and pulled it over my eyes. It ended right above my cheekbones as that is where my marks stopped as well. I wrapped a couple pieces of cloth around my wrists covering up the last bit of normal skin that I had showing, grabbed my bag, and headed out the door. 

I locked the door behind me and turned around to be greeted by a multitude of flowers. Gardenias, roses, lilies all covering the door across from mine from ceiling to floor and beginning to invade the hall. I sighed and made a mental note to buy some flowers on my way home today. It was such a shame, I thought as I locked the door and started down the hallway, we had gotten the news about a week ago. I hadn’t known her very well, but I think her name was Anira and she’d been a very powerful person from what I understood. Last Thursday we had all been called to a town meeting in the square, several members of the council had stepped out on the podium and informed us that we had lost one of our own. One of our most valued healers had been attacked and killed on her way to Orwen for a ritual healing; she was brutally murdered by a primal group of assassins called the Errant who have made it absolutely clear that they hate anyone marked. Due to this, they suggested that all marked individuals stay safely inside the walls of the city so that this terrible and most unfortunate tragedy would not have a chance to repeat itself. 

I turned and looked back to the flowered door one last time; she had only been 27 years old.