ABANDONED. Fantasy- seven designs of birthmarks or starmarks? read before 2003

[Kathleen]

A friend of mine is looking for a book he read a number of years ago and can't remember the title of it. Here's what he remembers...

It's fantasy. Many people in the world are born with these birthmarks, I think they may have been called 'starmarks'. There are seven different designs, and everyone who gets one particular design out of those seven dies pretty early in life. The main character is a female who is born with that mark, and ends up surviving.

There's also some kind of ruling group made up of one person each who have the other six marks, and they always left a seventh chair empty in remembrance of those with that seventh mark. I think, but am not sure, that the person who sits in that seventh chair is supposed to rule the group, but it has been an extremely long time since anyone with that mark had survived.

There's also a minor subplot where some dude gets press-ganged into servitude in a tribal assassin group, and ends up being part of a raid on his own family near the end of the book, killing them without hesitation, probably with a bow and arrow.

I'm pretty sure I read this book before 2003.

[Julia ♡ Sarcasm and Romance Addict ♡]

Going only by the birthmark thing, maybe Skyborn ?

[Rainbowheart]

The Glasswrights' Apprentice?

[Kris]

No response, moving to Abandoned folder.

Kathleen (OP) last posted in the group in December 2016.