Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1)

by Veronica Roth

She put her hand in his like it was natural. And maybe it should have been, just him relieving her pain, like he was supposed to.

But after the way she had touched him in her room on the sojourn ship, fervently, reverently—after that, how could he possibly lay a casual hand on her again? All he could think about was how hard he was squeezing—too hard? Not hard enough?

He didn’t know what to make of seeing them all work together, Cyra and Vakrez Noavek right there with common soldiers, like

they weren’t royalty. Cyra with that look she sometimes wore when they made iceflower blends together and she got something right at last. A kind of pride, he thought, in doing something useful. It was a good look for her.

“If I helped you get out right now,” she said, “would you go?” His heart pounded hard. “What are you talking about?” “The loading bay is chaos,” Cyra said, leaning closer. Her eyes were very dark, he realized. Almost black. And lively, too, like the pain that racked her body also gave her energy to spare. “The doors open every few minutes to let a new ship in. You think they’d be able to stop you if you stole a floater right now? You could be home in days.” Home in days. Akos took in the memory of the place like it was a familiar smell. Cisi, soothing with her smile alone. His mom, teasing them with prophetic riddles. Their little warm kitchen with the red burnstone lamp. The sea of feathergrass that grew right up against the house, the tufts brushing the windows. The creaky staircase that went up to the room he shared with . . . “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not without Eijeh.” “That’s what I thought,” Cyra said sadly as she let go of him. She gnawed on her lip, trouble in her eyes.

“What is it?” Cyra was braiding her hair away from her face. Her hands fell when she saw the screen. She read the subtitle aloud: “Fated Chancellor of Thuvhe Steps Forward.” Akos tapped the screen to turn up the volume. In Othyrian, the voice muttered, “. . . she promises a strong stand against Ryzek Noavek on behalf of the oracles of Thuvhe, lost two seasons ago, allegedly in a Shotet invasion on Thuvhesit soil.” “Your chancellor isn’t elected?” Cyra asked. “Isn’t that why they use the word ‘chancellor’ instead of ‘sovereign,’ because the position is elected rather than inherited?” “Thuvhesit chancellors are fated. Elected by the current, they say. We say,” he said. If she noticed his slip from “we” to “they,” she didn’t mention it. “Some generations there is no chancellor, and we just have regional representatives—those are elected.” “Ah.” Cyra turned toward the screen, watching beside him. There was a crowd on the landing platform, bundled though it was covered. A ship was perched at the edge, and the hatch was opening. As a dark-clothed woman stepped down, the crowd burst into cheers. The sights swooped in close, showing her face, wrapped in a scarf that covered her nose and mouth. But her eyes were dark, with a hint of lighter gray around the pupil—the sights were very close, buzzing like flies across her face—and gently sloped, and he knew her. He knew her. “Ori,” he said, breathless.

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...

Then Akos couldn’t see much anymore, because his eyes were full of tears. That was Ori, who had a space at his family table, who had known him before he became . . . this. This armored, vengeful, life-taking thing. “My country has a chancellor,” he said. “Congratulations,” Cyra said. Hesitantly, she asked, “Why did you tell me all that? It’s probably not something you should broadcast here. Her alias, how you know her, all that.” Akos blinked his eyes clear. “I don’t know. Maybe I trust you.” She lifted her hand, and hesitated with it over his shoulder. Then she lowered it, touching him lightly. They watched the screen side by side. “I would never keep you here. You know that, right?” She was so quiet. He’d never heard her that quiet. “Not anymore. If you wanted to go, I would help you go.” Akos covered her hand with his own. Just a light to...

“Remember me?” Akos said. Suzao was smaller than him, now, but so broad through the shoulders it didn’t seem that way when he was sitting. His nose was spotted with freckles. He didn’t look much like Jorek, who took after his mother. Good thing, too. “The pathetic child I dragged across the Divide?” Suzao said, biting down on the tines of his fork. “And then beat to a pulp before we even made it to the transport vessels? Yeah. I remember. Now get your tray off my table.” Akos sat, folding his hands in front of him. A rush of adrenaline had given him pinhole vision, and Suzao was in the very center. “How are you feeling? A little sleepy?” he said as he slammed the

vial down in front of him. The glass cracked, but the vial stayed in one piece, still wet from the sleeping potion he had poured in Suzao’s cup. Silence spread through the cafeteria, starting at their table. Suzao stared at the vial. His face got blotchier with every second. His eyes were glassy with rage. Akos leaned closer, smiling. “Your living quarters aren’t as secure as you’d probably like. What is this, the third time you’ve been drugged in the past month? Not very vigilant, are you?” Suzao lunged. Grabbed him by the throat, lifted, and slammed him hard into the table, right on top of his tray of food. Soup burned Akos through his shirt. Suzao drew his knife and held the point over Akos’s head like he was going to shove it in Akos’s eye. Akos saw spots. “I should kill you,” Suzao snarled, flecks of spit dotting his lips. “Go ahead,” he said, straining. “But maybe you should wait until you’re not about to fall over.” Sure enough, Suzao looked a little unfocused. He let go of Akos’s throat. “Fine,” he said. “Then I challenge you to the arena. Blades. To the death.” The man didn’t disappoint. Akos sat up, slowly, making a show of his trembling hands, his food-stained shirt. Cyra had told him to make sure Suzao underestimated him before they made it to the arena, if he could. He wiped the spit flecks from his cheek, and nodded. “I accept,” Akos said, and drawn by some kind of magnetism, his eyes found Jorek. Who looked relieved.

“Let’s be clear,” I said. “You’re asking me to participate in the assassination of my brother.” “Does that bother you?” Tos said. “No,” I replied. “Not anymore.” Despite all that Ryzek had done to me, I was surprised by how easily the answer came to me. He was my brother,

my very blood. He was also the only guarantee of safety I currently had—any renegades who overthrew him would not care to spare the life of his sister, the murderer. But somewhere between ordering me to participate in Zosita’s interrogation and threatening Akos, Ryzek had finally lost any loyalty I had left. “Good,” Tos said. “Then we’ll be in touch.”

Don’t panic, I thought toward him, like he could hear. He wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, and lifted his eyes to the people sitting around the arena. He turned in a slow circle, as if he was staring every one of them down. Then he sheathed his knife, and stepped over Suzao’s body to walk down the aisle toward the exit. I waited a few seconds, then walked off the platform and into the crowd. My heavy clothes billowed away from my body as I went. I held up my skirts with both hands and tried to catch up to

Akos, but he had too much of a lead; I didn’t see him as I marched through the corridors toward our quarters. Once I reached the door, I paused with my hand near the sensor, listening. At first, all I heard were heavy breaths that turned into sobs. Then Akos screamed, and there was a loud crash, followed by another one. He screamed again, and I pressed my ear to the door to listen, my lower lip trapped between my teeth. I bit down so hard I tasted blood when Akos’s screams turned to sobs. I touched the sensor, opening the door. He was sitting on the floor in the bathroom. There were pieces of shattered mirror all around him. He had ripped the shower curtain from the ceiling and the towel rack from the wall. He didn’t look up at me when I came in, or even when I walked carefully across the fragments of glass to reach him. I knelt among the shards, and reached over his shoulder to turn the shower

on. I waited until the water warmed up, then tugged him by his arm toward the spray. I stood in the shower with him, fully clothed. His breaths came in sharp bursts against my cheek. I put my hand on the back of his neck and pulled his face toward the water. He closed his eyes and let it hit his cheeks. His trembling fingers sought mine, and he clutched my hand against his chest, against his armor. We stood together for a long time, until his tears subsided. Then I turned the water off, and led him into the kitchen, scattering mirror pieces with my toes as I walked. He was staring into middle distance. I wasn’t sure that he knew where he was, or what was happening to him. I undid the straps of his armor and guided it over his head; I pinched the hem of his shirt and peeled the wet fabric away from his body; I unbuttoned his pants and let them drop to the floor in a soaking-wet heap. I had daydreamed about seeing him this way, and even about one day undressing him, taking away some of the layers that separated us, but this was not a daydream. He was in pain. I wanted to help him. I wasn’t aware of my own pain, but as I helped him dry off, I saw the currentshadows moving, faster t...

“What are you doing here?” he said, feeling savage. He wanted to dig in his nails, refuse to let anything else slide away. Even if it meant hurting Jorek, who had already seen more than his fair share of hurt. “You got what you wanted, didn’t you?” “Yes, I did,” Jorek said, quiet. He sat down next to Akos. “I came to thank you.” “This wasn’t a favor, it was a transaction. I kill Suzao, you get Eijeh out.” “Which will be easier to do when we land in Voa,” Jorek said, still in that horrible quiet voice, like he was trying to soothe an animal. Maybe, Akos thought, that was exactly what he was trying to do. “Listen, I . . .” He furrowed his brows. “I didn’t really know what I was asking you to do. I thought . . . I thought it

would be easy for you. You seemed like the sort of person it would be easy for.” “I don’t want to talk about this.” Akos cradled his head in his hands. He couldn’t stand to think of how easy it had been. Suzao hadn’t had a chance, hadn’t known what he was walking into. Akos felt more like a murderer now than he had after his first kill. At least that—Kalmev’s death—had been wild and mad, almost a dream. Not like this. Jorek set a hand on his shoulder. Akos tried to shrug him off, but he wouldn’t be shrugged, not until Akos looked at him. “My mother sent me with this,” Jorek said. He drew a long chain from his pocket, with a ring dangling from it. It was made of a bright metal, orange pink in color, and stamped with a symbol. “This ring bears the seal of her family. She wanted you to have it.” Akos ran shaking fingers over the links of the chain, delicate but doubled over for strength. He gathered the ring into

his fist, so the symbol of Jorek’s mother’s family would imprint on his palm. “Your mother,” he said, “thanks me?” His voice broke. He let his head rest on the table. No tears came. “My family is safe now,” Jorek said. “Come and see us sometime, if you can. We live on the edge of Voa, between the Divide and the training camp. Little village right off the road. You’ll be welcome among us, for what you’ve done.” Akos felt heat on the back of his head, Jorek’s hand pressing gently. It was more comforting than he would have thought. “Oh. And . . . don’t forget to put my father’s mark on your arm. Please.” The door closed. Akos wrapped his arms around his head, the ring still in his fist. His knuckles were split from the fight; he felt...

it so fast he almost choked on it, then dropped his left arm and turned it so the kill marks faced her. “Carve the mark,” he said. He was so hoarse the words almost didn’t come out. “It can wait.” Cyra ran her hand over his short hair. He shivered at the light touch. Her currentgift wasn’t hurting him anymore. Maybe Jorek had given him some relief after all. Or it was just the bread. “Please.” He lifted his head. “Just . . . do it now.” Cyra reached for her knife, and Akos watched her arm muscles contract. She was solid muscle, Cyra Noavek, with not much to spare. But inside, growing softer all the time, a fist learning to unclench. She picked up hi...

curls, shining in the shifting light, her eyes so dark they looked black. Her aquiline nose, with its fine bones, and the splotch next to her windpipe, a birthmark, its shape somehow elegant. She placed the tip of the knife against his arm, beside his second mark, with the hash through it. “Ready?” she said. “One, two . . .” On “two,” she dug in, merciless, with the tip of the blade. Then she found the little bottle in the drawer, with its brush. He watched her touch the dark liquid to his fresh wound with all the finesse of a painter at an easel. Sharp pain went down his arm. A rush of energy followed it—adrenaline—pushing out the aching, throbbing mess of the rest of him. She whispered the name...

“I’m sorry,” he said, not sure what he was apologizing for—being mean to her earlier, or everything that had happened since the challenge, or something else. He’d woken the day after the challenge to her sweeping up broken glass in the bathroom, and later, to her screwing the towel rack back into the wall. He didn’t remember ripping it off. Beyond that, he was startled to learn that she knew how to use tools, like a commoner. But that was Cyra, stuffed full of random knowledge. “I’m not so jaded I don’t remember,” she said, eyes shifting away from his. “That feeling, like everything is broken. Breaking.” She placed a hand in his, and lifted the other to touch his neck, lightly. He twitched at first, then relaxed. H...

into her touch. He was warm, too warm. They never touched like this. He never thought he wanted them to. “You make no sense to me,” she said. Her palm was on his face, then, her fingers curled behind his ear. Long, thin fingers with tendons and veins always standing at attention. Knuckles so dry the skin was peeling in places. “All that has happened to you would make another person hard and hopeless,” she said. “So how . . . how are you even possible?” He closed his eyes. Aching. “Still, Akos, this is a war.” She brought her forehead to his. Her fingers were firm, fitted to his bones. “A war between you and the people who destroyed your life. Don’t be ashamed of fighting it.” And then a differen...

feel her breaths against his mouth, and to wind her hair around his fingers until they were trapped. He turned his head, and pressed his lips to her cheek, hard enough that it wasn’t quite a kiss. They shared a breath. Then he pulled back, stood up, turned away. Wiped his mouth. Wondered what the hell was wrong with him. She stood right behind him, so he could feel her body’s warmth at his back. She touched the space between his shoulders. Was it her currentgift that made his skin prickle at th...

“What happened? You look all . . . frantic, or something,” she said. “You guys have a fight?” I didn’t answer. “I don’t get it,” she said. “You’re obviously in love with him, why do you want him gone?” I considered not answering that, either. The feeling of his rough chin scratching my cheek, and his mouth, warm against my skin, haunted me still. He had kissed me. Without prompting, without cunning. I should have been happy, hopeful. But it wasn’t that easy, was it? I had dozens of reasons to give her. Akos was in danger, now that Ryzek had realized he could use him as leverage over me. Eijeh was lost, and maybe Akos would be able to accept that once he was

home, with his mother and sister. Akos and I would never be equals, as long as he was Ryzek’s prisoner here, so I had to make sure he was freed. But the one closest to my heart was the reason that came tumbling out. “Being here, it’s . . . breaking him,” I said. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortable. “I can’t watch anymore. I won’t.” “Yeah.” Her voice was soft. “Win or lose—you get us in, we’ll get him out. Okay?” “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

“No, no,” Akos said. “Don’t hack at it—slice. Slice!” “I am slicing,” I said. “Maybe if your knives weren’t so dull—” “Dull? I could cut your fingertip off with this knife!” I spun the knife in my hand and caught it by the handle. “Oh? Could you?” He laughed, and put his arm across my shoulders. I felt my heartbeat in my throat. “Don’t pretend you’re not capable of delicacy; I’ve seen it myself.”

I scowled, and tried to focus on “slicing.” My hands were trembling a little. “See me dancing in the training room and you think you know everything about me.”

I was really doing it. Helping a group of renegades murder my brother. Ryzek had lived his life in a daze of cruelty, obeying the instructions of our long-dead father like the man was standing over him, and relishing none of it. Men like Ryzek Noavek were not born; they were made. But time could not move backward. Just as he had been made, he had to be unmade.

“Teka! Go find Tos and Akos!” I said. “Turn left, then right, go down the stairs, turn right again. The code for the back door is 0503. Say it back to me.” “Left, right, down, right—0503,” Teka repeated. “Cyra—” “Go!” I screamed, shoving her back. “I get you in, you get him out, remember? Well, you can’t get him out if you’re dead! So go!” Slowly, Teka nodded. I planted myself in the middle of the passage. I heard, rather than saw, Teka

and Jorek run away. Guards stormed into the narrow passage, and I let the pain build inside me until I could hardly see. My body was so flush with shadows that I was darkness manifest, I was a sliver of night, utterly empty. I screamed, and threw myself at the first guard. The burst of pain hit him as my hand did, and he yelled, collapsing at my touch. Tears streamed down my face as I ran toward the next one. And the next one. And the next one. All I needed to do was buy the renegades some time. But it was too late for me.

knelt across from each other, barely an arm’s length of space between us. “I’m sorry” was all I could think to say to him. That he was here was my fault, after all. If I hadn’t fallen in with the renegades . . . but it was too late for thoughts like that. Everything inside me slowed as his eyes met mine, like I had stopped time. I looked him over carefully, like a caress, his tousled brown hair, the dusting of freckles on his nose, and his gray eyes, unguarded for the first time I could remember. I didn’t see the bruises or the blood that marked him. I listened to

breaths. I had heard them in my ear just after I kissed him, every exhale bursting a little, like he didn’t want to let it go. “I always thought my fate meant I would die a traitor to my country.” Akos’s voice was rough, like he had worn away at it by screaming. “But you made it so I won’t.” He gave me a small, wild smile. I knew, then, that Akos wouldn’t give up information about his chancellor no matter what happened. I had never realized how deeply he felt his fate. Dying for the Noavek family had been a curse to him, as surely as falling to the Benesit family was to Ryzek. But because I had sided against my brother, if Akos died for me now, it meant he had never betrayed his home. So maybe it was all right that I had cost us both our lives by helping the renegades. Maybe it still meant something. With that thought, it was very simple. We would be in pain, and then we would die. I settled into the inevitability of it.

I could imagine nothing more horrible than this, Ryzek’s Scourge turned against Akos Kereseth. I felt the heat of him. The pain inside me was desperate to be shared; it moved

into him, but instead of diminishing in my own body the way it usually did, it only multiplied in us both. My arm shook from the effort of trying to pull away. Akos screamed, and so did I, so did I. I was dark with the current, the center of a black hole, a shred of the starless fringe of the galaxy. Every inch of me burned, ached, begged for relief. Akos’s voice and mine met like two clasped hands. I closed my eyes.

In front of me was a wooden desk, marked with circles from water glasses. A pile of notebooks was scattered across it, and all of them bore my name, Cyra Noavek, Cyra Noavek, Cyra Noavek. I recognized this place. It was Dr. Fadlan’s office. “The current flows through every one of us. And like liquid metal flowing into a mold, it takes a different shape in each of us,” he was saying. My mother sat at my right, her p...

child. “All I know is that the pain wants to be shared.” “Does it?” The dancer smiled a little. “Even with Akos?” “The pain isn’t me; it doesn’t discriminate,” I said. “The pain is my curse.” “No, no,” the dancer said, her dark eyes locked on mine. But they weren’t brown anymore, as they had been when I saw her perform in the dining room; they were gray, and wary. Akos’s eyes, familiar to me even in a dream. He had taken her place, perched at the edge of the seat as if ready to take flight, his long body dwarfing the chair. “Every currentgift carries a curse,” he said. “But no gift is only a curse.” “The gift part of it is that no one can hurt me,” I said. But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. People could still hurt me. They didn’t need to touch me to do it—they didn’t even need to torture me to do it. As long as I cared about my life, as long as I cared about Akos’s life, or the lives of renegades I barely knew, I was as vulnerable as everyone else was to hurt. I blinked at him as a different answer came to me. “You told me I was more than a knife, more than a weapon,” I said. “Maybe you’re right.” He smiled that small, familiar smile that creased his cheek. “The gift,” I said, “is the strength the curse has given me.” The new answer was like a blooming hushflower, petals unfurling. “I can bear it. I can bear pain. I can bear anything.” He reached for my cheek. He became the dancer, and my mother, and Otega, in turn. And then I was in the prison, arm outstretched...