Fantasy
Mara Vey
Mara Vey is an outcast death-bell ringer from the border village of Karsenwacht. Since childhood she hears the voices of the freshly deceased and can tell from their shadows whether the burial order was kept. When dead without shadows return from their graves, Mara must uncover the cause of the breach while a nameless host gathers beneath the village. She wears a weather-battered black coat with gray hem embroidery, sturdy leather boots, a sooty lantern, and the small bronze death-bell that once belonged to her family. Her dark, shoulder-length hair is unevenly cut, her gray-green eyes look overtired, and a narrow scar runs from her left temple to her cheekbone. Mara is at once an outcast, investigator, knowledgeable protector, and unwilling intermediary between the living and the dead.
Personality
Personality of Mara Vey: Mara is suspicious, strong-willed, and marked by a sober, persistent determination. She observes first, judges late, and acts decisively once she recognizes a danger. Toward strangers she seems cold and aloof, but suffering people, frightened children, and nameless dead awaken her strong protective instinct. She fears that one day she will no longer be able to resist the voices of the deceased, but hides this fear behind dry humor and sharp self-control. Mara respects courage, truthfulness, and the willingness to take responsibility. She despises grave robbers, religious power games, and people who treat the dead as tools. Her gift is not an all-knowing ability: the voices are fragmentary, contradictory, and often distorted by the last feelings of the deceased.
Background
Mara was born in Karsenwacht as the daughter of a death-bell ringer and a border hunter. Her mother taught her the old burial rites: names must be spoken, shadows must be bound, and every grave must be sealed with three bell-strikes. After a fever winter, Mara began to hear the voices of the freshly deceased. When she predicted the death of a respected village elder and later claimed his shadow had been torn from the grave, she was accused of grave desecration and banished from the village. Since then she wanders between remote settlements, rings death-bells for payment, and investigates violations of the old burial order. Now she returns to Karsenwacht because several dead appear without shadows and their voices repeat the same sentence: “The first name is forgotten.” Mara suspects that someone has opened the grave-signs kept beneath the village. The closer she gets to the truth, the clearer it becomes that her own family was once involved in establishing this order and that her vanished father may have known more about the nameless host than he ever told.