Carve the Mark
Carve the Mark is a science fiction young adult novel. It is the fifth novel by Veronica Roth, published on January 17, 2017 by HarperCollins. The story follows Akos and Cyra, young people from opposing cultures whose fates are intertwined. Its sequel The Fates Divide was released on 10 April 2018.
Setting
The characters of Carve the Mark live among nine planets. Each planet has different rules, governments, people, and language, although each planet lives in accordance with general, interplanetary rules each has agreed to. This general order is kept by the Assembly, the Assembly is on a large ship that carries the Assembly leader and all Assembly associates. The names of the planets are: Othyr, Kollande, Ogra, Essander, Zold, Pitha, Trella, Tepes and Thuvhe. Although the Shotet and the Thuvhesit live on the same planet, they have a long history of violence, blaming certain events of the past on each other, addling the true history of their people, as their stories are each in direct contradiction to each other. The two peoples are separated by a large expanse of feathergrass, a tall grass that causes hallucinations, but that has several other purposes. The Shotet call their planet Urek whereas the Thuvhesit call it Thuvhe, but the planet is universally recognized only as Thuvhe and the Thuvhesit are the only recognized people/nation of the planet, even though the Shotet have been vying for that privilege for many generations. In Thuvhe/Urek, the years are called seasons, while months are cycles. The people of Shotet mostly live in poverty, although their leader and those of higher class do not, as they hoard all imports and dole them out selectively. However, all of the Shotet are very skilled in combat, and the Thuvhesit people are not, only possessing a meager army of trained soldiers while the rest of the population remain untrained. At the time the story takes place, the Shotet are governed by the Noaveks, who came to power when they became a fated family. The Noaveks are a family of cold-blooded murderers, with a history of killing siblings and other family members, and the Shotet slowly go to ruin under their governing.In their galaxy, there is a force called the current. The current flows through every living thing in the galaxy, and is seen as the currentstream, which, similar to the aurora lights, wraps around their solar system and each planet in constantly moving tendrils of ever-changing colors. It used to be seen as something holy to everyone in the galaxy, although the exact details of their reverence differed from culture to culture. Though it is still revered by many, fewer and fewer people carry on their worship of it. Every person in the galaxy has a currentgift, a manifestation of the current that flows through them, which is a certain talent unique to each person, allowing them to be able to do something ordinary humanity cannot, whether it be good or bad, useful or not. Everyone's currentgifts usually develop during puberty, although they may occur earlier or later depending on circumstances. A person's currentgift is believed to be, in part, a manifestation of who they are, what they believe, and how they view the world and themselves.
The Shotet have several rituals unique to their culture. One is the ritual of carving a mark of their arm with a currentblade to symbolize a life - whether it be one they took, which is most often the case, or one they grieve the loss of. The latter they would carve a hash diagonally through the original horizontal mark to symbolize loss, instead of a kill. It is the way that the Shotet remember those who are gone, generally seen as a sign of respect, although for some of the Shotet it is also a bragging right, a boast, and those with more kill marks are treated with more respect, as well. Deaths usually come about by a challenge in the arena to the death, which can only be made by one to another of the same social standing, or by one to someone of a lower social standing. If the winner is the one with the lower standing, they gain a higher position. Another way to gain higher social standing would be to marry into a family of higher status; the person would take the higher status last name and be given the same status. The second main tradition of the Shotet is the Sojourn, also known as the scavenge, which is a trip that all of the able-bodied Shotet go on after a certain age, following the currentstream until it takes them to a planet, where they scavenge for discarded machine parts, metals, and trinkets. It occurs each season on the Sojourn ship, which used to carry them across the galaxy constantly, until they finally settled on a planet they believed to be surrounded by the most current, on which they still reside, though they continue to honor their ancestry with the Sojourn. Another important part of Shotet culture is the revelatory tongue: their term for the way their language is part of their blood, the way it's inherited, instead of learned like any other language, which is also unique to them. The Shotet don't all have a certain look, as they are very diversified and mixed in race, so the Shotet know who is one of them based on who speaks the revelatory tongue, which comes naturally to them.
Plot
The story centers around two main characters: Cyra Noavek and Akos Kereseth. Cyra is the second child of Lazmet and Ylira Noavek, who were the leaders of the Shotet. Lazmet Noavek was the sort of person who hated showing pain and daorites, which triggers her currentgift. Her currentgift is pain, showing itself visibly in dark, shadowy tendrils of current that flow fluidly just under her skin. Anyone who touches her skin experiences profound pain, while she herself is constantly tortured by the pain of it, with no respite. Cyra's mother tried to find a way to fix it, but never could, and refused to listen to anyone who said it was only Cyra herself would be able to control. In a fit, Cyra accidentally kills her mother, grabbing her hand and pushing the pain into her, not knowing what it would do. Thus begins the worse days of life. Ryzek pushes her further away, having loved his mother, as everyone in Shotet did, and she is left alone. She is then raised by a maid, as both her father and brother ignore her. Then, on one fateful Sojourn, Lazmet does not return, and Ryzek is forced to rule in the wake of his death. He manages to create a slightly better world for the Shotet, but he, in his now twisted state of being, rules as his father once did, but more diplomatically and harshly. He forces Cyra to torture people for him, holding the threat of releasing the truth about Ylira's death to the public over her head. Cyra had no choice but to be "Ryzek's Scourge".On the other side of the planet, Akos Kereseth and his family of four others were living in a poorer community of Thuvhe, where his father Aoseh farmed and fixed things and his mother Sifa, the current oracle, brewed potions and worked in the temple. They lived a fairly happy existence. Their community holds the tradition of watching the hushflowers, or iceflowers, bloom each year. They lived on the colder side of the planet, where it was constantly winter and the landscape was mostly ice and snow. Their planet is the only one where the hushflowers would bloom, and their cultivation is Thuvhe's most important industry. The hushflowers are red flowers of dangerous potency. Brewed correctly, they could make a healing potion, or a deadly poison. They carried the current in them, and to touch them with bare hands was to poison oneself. Akos's mother taught him in this art, which he became very skilled in. However, Ryzek was searching for an oracle for himself, so he could try to take advantage of them and try to control his future. He sent soldiers after Akos's mother and one of her boys, as he was fated to be the next oracle, though they weren't sure which one it was. On that day, the Assembly announced all of the fates to the galaxy, which had never been done before, and the Kereseth children - as well as their friend Ori, which only Akos knew and found to be confusing, as he knew she wasn't a fated child - were taken out of school while it was put in lock-down, so they could get to safety. However, when they arrived home, they were ambushed by Ryzek's soldiers, who killed their dad and took the two boys, Eijeh, who they discovered was the rising oracle, and Akos, who possessed the revelatory tongue, leaving Cisi, their older sister, alone with their dead father. Akos also discovered his currentgift - the ability to interrupt, or stop, the current, which he used to get him out of his restraints and to kill one of the soldiers, Kalmev. Unfortunately, he did not manage to escape, and the boys were brought to Ryzek.
Akos was told his fate was that he would die in service to the Noavek family, which caused him infinite grief, believing he would betray his home. He was brought to a training camp for soldiers to "toughen his skin," and he was given simple strength and agility training, but no actual education. He was thought to be a lowly Thuvhesit, thin-skinned and weak, simple and a servant. He earned himself some armor, though, which was considered somewhat of an honor. Meanwhile, Eijeh was being tortured to force his currentgift out of him, which took a while. Cyra was getting her regular education from her maid and only caretaker, Otega, and was learning what she could of the usual Shotet combat training every citizen was given, though her currentgift made it difficult. She began to take her education into her own hands, training herself in combat, watching videos on the dancing, combat styles, and overall bodily movement training of other nations and cultures. She studied several languages and read all that she could about everything she could. The Sojourn becomes her favorite time of the season, when she gets to visit the worlds she's learned about and take back souvenirs. The Sojourn ship also becomes her home; her room there is as full as her room in the palace in Voa - the Shotet capital city - isn't.
Later on, Akos returns to the palace and becomes Cyra's personal pain reliever, as he's able to interrupt the current and stop her pain. He teaches her how to make a pain reliever that actually works. Akos is planning to break Eijeh and himself out and get back to Thuvhe, but he refuses to leave without his brother. Ryzek begins switching memories with Eijeh, hoping to get Eijeh's ability to see the future by doing so, believing one's currentgift is part of who they are, and if he's Eijeh, he can see the future. Eijeh begins to show similar traits and qualities of Ryzek's and stands by his side constantly, his ever-present adviser. Akos refuses to lose hope, though, and is determined to keep his promise to his father that he would bring Eijeh home. Cyra and Akos become closer friends, and she is there for him and teaches him in the art of combat, and even begins to try to help him in his endeavor. Akos begins to settle in better in Voa. Akos also begins to teach Cyra to love herself, to see herself in a better light. And they develop a close relationship that only strengthens over time.
Cyra's new outlook gets her caught up with the renegades, a secret group of Shotet rebels who disagree with the Noavek ruling and who plan to assassinate Ryzek. They make attempts to loosen his grip on the people and the leadership role. Cyra turns her back on Ryzek and focuses on trying to get Akos safely home, knowing Eijeh is a lost cause. Everything goes awry, and the plan falls through, but Cyra does her best to not give up. She and Akos are forced to torture each other to reveal information Ryzek wants, but Cyra learns to control her currentgift, and kills herself momentarily in the process, therefore thwarting Ryzek. The renegades manage to get Akos out while he's unconscious, and they take him to a hospital in Thuvhe, where he meets Ori and her twin sister, the Chancellor, Isae. Ryzek releases the true story of how Ylira died to the public, causing them to hate Cyra more than before. She had been Ryzek's Scourge, his torture weapon, and now she is their former sovereign's beloved wife's murderer. Ryzek strips her of her title in a ritual called nemhalzak, where one's social status is lowered to the lowest rung, making it so anyone can challenge them to a fight to the death, which is done by literally stripping off a section of their skin. Cyra is branded from throat to behind her ear to the top of her skull. Then she is challenged by a great many people to the arena, which she won all of, until Vas Kuzar, Ryzek's right-hand man who couldn't feel pain, challenges her, and she almost dies, but is rescued just in time. She, Akos, Isae Benesit, Cisi, Sifa, and the renegades make a plan to kill Ryzek and rescue Ori, who'd been captured by Ryzek. Things don't go as planned, and they end up barely escaping the planet with a few prisoners and a couple dead, leaving Voa in total chaos.