Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1)

by Veronica Roth

Right behind her was another woman, just as tall, just as slim, and just as covered. When the sights shifted to her, Akos saw that the women were the same, practically down to the eyelash. Not just sisters, but twins. Ori had a sister. Ori had a double. Akos searched their faces for a hint of difference, and found none. “You know them?” Cyra said softly. For a tick all he could do was nod. Then he wondered if he ought to have. Ori had only gone by “Orieve Rednalis”—not a name that was supposed to belong to a fate-favored child—because her real identity was dangerous. Which meant it would be better to keep it to himself. But, he thought as he looked up at Cyra, and he didn’t finish the thought, he just let the words tumble out: “She was a friend of our family when I was a child. When she was a child. She went by an alias. I didn’t know she had a . . . sister.” “Isae and Orieve Benesit,” Cyra said, reading the names from the screen. The twins were walking into a building. They both looked graceful with the breeze from inside the building pressing their coats—buttoned at the side, at the shoulder—tight to their bodies. He didn’t recognize the fur of their scarves or the fabric of the coats themselves, black and clear of snow even now. An off-world material, to be sure. “Rednalis is the name she used,” he said. “A Hessa name. The day the fates were announced was the last time I saw her.” Isae and Orieve stopped to greet people on the way in, but as they walked away, and the si...