Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1)

by Veronica Roth

said. And the city of Hessa still wore the scars of Shotet violence, the names of the lost carved into low stone walls, broken windows patched up instead of replaced, so you could still see the cracks. Just across the feathergrass. Sometimes they felt close enough to touch. “The Noavek family is fate-favored, did you know that? Just like you and your siblings are,” Sifa went on. “The oracles didn’t always see fates in that family line, it happened only within my lifetime. And when it did, it gave the Noaveks leverage over the Shotet government, to seize control, which has been in their hands ever since.” “I didn’t know that could happen. A new family suddenly getting fates, I mean.” “Well, those of us who are gifted in seeing the future don’t control who gets a fate,” his mom said. “We see hundreds of futures, of possibilities. But a fate is something that happens to a particular person in every single version of the future we see, which is very rare. And those fates determine who the fate-favored families are—not the other way around.” He’d never thought about it that way. People always talked about the oracles doling out fates like presents to special, important people, but to hear his mom tell it, that was all backward. Fates made certain families important. “So you’ve seen their fates. The fates of the Noaveks.” She nodded. “Just the son and the daughter. Ryzek and Cyra. He’s older; she’s your age.” He’d heard their names before, along with some ridiculous rumors. Stor...