Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1)

by Veronica Roth

The current flowed through every living thing, and showed itself in the sky in all different colors.

Their dad couldn’t see the future, but he could mend things with his fingers, like broken plates or the crack in the wall screen or the frayed hem of an old shirt. Sometimes he made you feel like he could put people back together, too, if they got themselves into trouble.

We knew how to hold the beauty of old things against the beauty of the new, losing nothing from either.

I saw, for the first time, how thin the line was between fear and love, between reverence and adoration.

“Carve the mark,” I said, my throat tight.

I am a Shotet. I am sharp as broken glass, and just as fragile. I tell lies better than I tell truths. I see all of the galaxy and never catch a glimpse of it.

She was so good at pretending to be devoted.

“Carve the mark,” he said.

And I did know him. I could pick him out in a crowd from his gait alone. I knew the shade of the veins that showed on the backs of his hands. And his favorite knife for chopping iceflowers. And the way his breath always smelled spiced, like hushflower and sendes leaf mixed together.

He gave me a small, wild smile.

Maybe it still meant something.

I settled into the inevitability of it.

“And if it hurts?” And smiled a little. “Life is full of hurt anyway.”

“You want to see people as extremes. Bad or good, trustworthy or not,” I said. “I understand. It’s easier that way. But that isn’t how people work.”

“But I wanted you to know that your friendship has . . . quite literally altered me.”