Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1)

by Veronica Roth

There was a hunger inside me, and there always had been. That hunger was stronger than pain, stronger than horror. It gnawed even after everything else inside me had given up. It was not hope; it did not soar; it slithered, clawed, and dragged, and it would not let me stop. And when I finally named it, I found it was something very simple: the desire to live.

“I know what I am.” “Oh? And what’s that?” “A knife,” I said. “A hot poker. A rusty nail.”

“I don’t take credit for other people’s strength,” Cyra said. “Only my own.”