Akos Kereseth Quotes

I paused. I was tempted to call Akos a friend, but it seemed too simple for what he had been to me, too small a word. ~ Veronica Roth

Sometimes she still said things that wounded me. And not because they were lies. ~ Veronica Roth

I sprinted down the alley, not fast enough to avoid the cold water rolling down my back, with a childlike shriek. I caught his arm by the elbow, and we ran together, through the singing crowd, past swaying elders, men and women dancing too close, irritable off-planet visitors trying to cover up their wares in the market. We splashed through bright blue puddles, soaking our clothes. And we were both, for once, laughing. ~ Veronica Roth

He had no fragile illusions about my goodness, destined to shatter when he found out the truth. But he accepted me anyway. Care about me anyway, ~ Veronica Roth

The current had not given me a curse. And I had become strong under its teaching. But there was no denying another thing Dr. Fadlan had said--that on some level, I felt like I, and everyone else, deserved pain. One thing I knew, deep in my bones, was that Akos Kereseth did not deserve it. Holding on to that thought, I reached for him, and touched my hand to his chest, feeling fabric.
I opened my eyes. The shadows were still traveling over my body, since I wasn't touching his skin, but my entire left arm, from shoulder to the fingertips that touched him, was bare. Even if he had been able to feel my currentgift, I still would not have been hurting him.
Akos's eyes, usually so wary, were wide with wonder.
"When I kill people with a touch, it's because I decide to give them all the pain and keep none of it for myself. It's because I get so tired of bearing it that all I want to do is set it down for a while," I said. "But during the interrogation, it occurred to me that maybe I was strong enough to bear it all myself. That maybe no one else but me could. And I never would have thought of that without you."
I blinked tears from my eyes.
"You saw me as someone better than I was," I said. "You told me that I could choose to be different than I had been, that my condition was not permanent. And I began to believe you. Taking in all the pain nearly killed me, but when I woke up again, the gift was different. It doesn't hurt as much. Sometimes I can control i ~ Veronica Roth

He carried the hot mug, which was tiny in his hand, over to Cisi, who dumped the vial of sleep elixir in it and sauntered over to the guard. Without a word of explanation.
"I doubt he speaks Thuvhesit," Teka said.
Cisi's posture relaxed, and a smile spread over her face as she greeted the guard. At first the man looked like he would yell at her, but then he got that sleepy look, the same one both Jorek and Jyo had given Cisi yesterday.
"She could be speaking Ogran," he said. "It wouldn't matter."
He'd seen the effects of Cisi's gift before, but only when she wasn't really trying. He had no idea how potent the effect would be when she actually put effort into it. The guard was leaning back against the amphitheater wall, a little smile curling his lips, and when she offered him the mug, he cradled it in both hands. And sipped.
Akos hustled through the crowd, quick. If the guard was going to topple, he wanted it to happen as discreetly as possible. And sure enough, by the time he made it to his sister's side, the guard was swaying on his feet, the rest of the Othyrian drink splashing on the packed dirt. Akos caught him by the shoulders and lowered him to the ground, slow. Teka was already crouched over the man's body, searching his pockets. She turned up the key quickly, checked over her shoulder, and crammed it into the lock.
"Okay," Isae said to Cisi. "That was downright alarming."
Cisi just grinned. ~ Veronica Roth

Jyo offered Isae a fried feathergrass stalk with a big smile, but Akos snatched it before she could take it.
"You don't want to eat that," he said. "Unless you want to spend the next six hours hallucinating."
"Last time Jyo slipped someone one of those, they wandered around this house talking about giant dancing babies," Jorek said.
"Yeah, yeah," Teka said. "Laugh all you want, but you would be scared too if you hallucinated giant babies."
"It was worth it, whether I will ever be forgiven or not," Jyo said, winking. ~ Veronica Roth

Ryzek will be in a huge crowd of people, many of whom are his most ardent supporters and fiercest soldiers. What kind of 'move' do you suggest we make?"
Cyra replied, "You said it yourself, didn't you? Kill him."
"Oh, right!" Teka smacked the table, obviously annoyed. "Why didn't I think of killing him? How simple!"
Cyra rolled her eyes. "This time you won't have to sneak into his house while he's asleep. This time, I'll challenge him to the arena."
Everybody got quiet again. For different reasons, Akos was sure. Cyra was a good fighter, everybody knew that, but no one knew how good Ryzek was--they hadn't seen him in action. And then there was the matter of getting to a place where Cyra could actually challenge him. And getting him to do it instead of just arresting her.
"Cyra," Akos said.
"He declared nemhalzak--he erased your status, your citizenship," Teka said, talking over him. "He has no reason to honor your challenge."
"Of course he does." Isae was frowning. "He could have gotten rid of her quietly when he learned she was a renegade, but he didn't. He wanted her disgrace, and her death, to be public. That means he's afraid of her, afraid she has power over Shotet. If she challenges hi in front of everyone, he won't be able to back down. He'll look like a coward."
"Cyra," Akos said again, quiet this time.
"Akos," Cyra answered, with just a touch of the gentleness he had seen in the stairwell. "He is no match for me."
The ~ Veronica Roth

And you're fated to die for the Noaveks."
"Thanks for the reminder; I'd almost forgotten," Akos snapped. "Did you want my help, or not?"
"Yeah. Sorry. ~ Veronica Roth

Three visions," Sifa began. "In the first, we depart this place before daybreak, so no one sees us through that hole in the roof."
"But…you made that hole," Teka interrupted. It figured she would reach the limits of her reverence so quickly, Akos thought. Teka didn't seem to like nonsense. "If you knew we would have to leave because of it, you could have avoided making it in the first place."
"So glad you're keeping up," Sifa said, serene.
Akos swallowed a laugh. A few seats down, Cisi seemed to be doing the same. ~ Veronica Roth

"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 ~ Veronica Roth

I had accepted the likelihood of death when I decided to kill my father, but now that I had my life, I wanted to keep it again. Even without Akos, even without family, even with most of Shotet hating me, what I had told Teka before was right. I had more now. I had friends. Hope for my own future, and for myself.
But I also had love for my people, broken though some of them may have been. Their stubborn will to survive. The way they looked at discarded objects, not as garbage, but as possibilities. They crash-landed through hostile atmospheres. They coasted alongside the currentstream. They were explorers, innovators, warriors, wanderers. And I belonged to them. ~ Veronica Roth

Jorek was standing just inside the doorway. Staring. His hand hanging off the back of his neck, like always.
"What?" Akos said. He got out a dropper and touched it to the potion.
"Nothing, it's just…this isn't what I expected Cyra Noavek's room to look like," Jorek said.
Akos grunted a little--it wasn't that he'd expected, either--as he squeezed the yellow elixir from the dropper into the vial.
"You really don't sleep in the same bed," Jorek said.
Cheeks hot, Akos scowled at him. "No. Why?"
"Rumors." Jorek shrugged. "I mean, you do live together. Touch each other."
"I help her with her pain," Akos said.
"And you're fated to die for the Noaveks."
"Thanks for the reminder; I'd almost forgotten," Akos snapped. ~ Veronica Roth

But now you know what I've done," she said, staring at her hand, at his chest, anywhere but his face. "Before, you had only seen me do it to other people, but now you know the kind of pain I have caused people, so many people, just because I was too much of a coward to stand up to him." She scowled, and lifted her hand. "Getting you out was the one good thing I've ever done, and now it's not even worth anything, because here you are again, you…you idiot!"
She clutched at her side, wincing. She was crying again.
Akos touched her face. When he first met her, he thought she was this fearsome thing, this monster he needed to escape. But she had unfurled bit by bit, showing him her wicked humor by waking him with a knife to his throat, talking about herself with unflinching honesty, for better or for worse, and loving--so deeply--every little bit of this galaxy, even the parts she was supposed to hate.
She was not a rusty nail, as she had once told him, or a hot poker, or a blade in Ryzek's hand. She was a hushflower, all power and possibility. Capable of doing good and harm in equal measure.
"It is not the only good thing you've ever done," Akos said, in plain Thuvhesit. It felt like the right language for this moment, the language of his home, which Cyra understood but didn't really speak when he was around, like she was afraid it would hurt his feelings.
"It's worth everything to me, what you did," he said, still in Thuvhesit. "It changes everything. ~ Veronica Roth

He took the soap from me, and turned it in his hand to capture its lather. Then he ran his fingers up and down my scarred arm, gentle. It was, in some ways, even better than being kissed by him. He had no fragile illusions about my goodness, destined to shatter when he found out the truth. But he accepted me anyway. Cared about me anyway.
"Okay," I said. "I'm done, I think."
Akos stood, holding my hands, and lifted me as I came to my feet. Water ran down my legs and back. As I fastened the armor around my forearm again, he found a towel in one of the cabinets, then pieced together clothes for me--the pants from Isae, underwear from Cisi, one of his own shirts and a pair of his socks, my still-intact boots. I looked at the pile of clothes with some dismay. It was one thing for him to see me in my underwear, but to help me take it off…
Well. If that was going to happen, I wanted it to be under different circumstances.
"Cisi," Akos said. He was also staring at the pile of clothes. "Maybe you should help with this part."
"Thank you," I said to him.
He smiled. "It's getting really hard to keep my eyes on your face."
I made a face at him as he left. ~ Veronica Roth

Give me a reason not to kill Ryzek right now, Noavek," Teka said, turning to me. "And if that reason is something about Kereseth, I will hit you."
"If you kill him, you won't have my cooperation in whatever plan the renegades concoct next," I said dully, without looking at her. "If you help me keep him alive, I'll help you conquer Shotet."
"Yeah? And what kind of help would you be, exactly?"
"Oh, I don't know, Teka," I snapped, finally breaking my spell to glare at her. "Yesterday the renegades were just squatting in a safe house in Voa, clueless, and now, because of me, you're standing over the unconscious body of Ryzek Noavek with Voa in utter chaos behind you. I think that suggests my capacity to help the renegade cause is considerable, don't you? ~ Veronica Roth

Akos, I can't read Shotet characters."
"Um…neither can I, really." The supply cabinet was organized, all the individually packaged items in neat rows. Alphabetical. He knew a few of them by sight, but not enough.
"You'd think after all that time in Shotet you'd have learned something," Cyra said from her place on the table, slurring the words a little. Her arm flopped to the side, and she pointed. "Silverskin is there. Antiseptic on the left. Make me a painkiller."
"Hey, I learned a few things," he said to her, squeezing her hand before he got to work. "The most challenging lesson was how to deal with you. ~ Veronica Roth

Afterward, I pretended to be patient as Akos taught me how to predict how strong a poison would be without tasting it. I tried to seal every moment in my memory. I needed to know how to brew these concoctions on my own, because soon he would be gone. If the renegades and I were caught in our attempt tonight, I would probably lose my life. If we succeeded, Akos would be home, and Shotet would be in chaos, without its leader. Either way, it was unlikely that I would see him again.
"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 know enough. Look, slices! Told you so."
He lifted his arm, but kept his hand against my back, right under my shoulder blade. I carried the feeling with me for the rest of the night, as we finished the elixir and got ready for bed and he shut the door between us. ~ Veronica Roth

Remind me," Cyra said as the painkiller kicked in, "to yell at you for coming back."
"Whatever you say," Akos said.
But he was relieved, because there was his Cyra, jagged as a serrated blade, strong as Deadened ice. ~ Veronica Roth

Eijeh stuffed a roll in his mouth, practically choking on the crumbs.
"Careful," Akos said to him. "Death by bread isn't a dignified way to go."
"At least I'll die doing what I love," Eijeh said, around all the bread.
Akos laughed. ~ Veronica Roth

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 touch, but it was charged with new energy. Like an ache he didn't quite mind.
"If--when, when I get Eijeh out," he said, "would you ever go with me?"
"You know, I think I would. ~ Veronica Roth

I could take him down, but not quietly," Akos said. "I'd probably get myself arrested."
"Well, we'll call that our backup plan," Isae said. "What about distraction?"
"Yeah, sure." Teka folded her arms. "The man was hired to guard a secure door that leads to Ryzek Noavek's secret underground prison, and his failure to do so will probably result in his execution, but he will definitely abandon his post just because you wave something shiny at him."
"Say 'secret underground prison' a little louder, why don't you?" Isae said.
Teka snapped a reply, but Akos wasn't paying attention. Cisi was tugging his sleeve.
"Let me see your vials," she said. "I have an idea."
Akos kept a few vials with him wherever he went--sleep elixir, calming tonic, and a blend for fortitude among them. He wasn't sure what Cisi needed, but he undid the strap holding the vials against his arm and handed the hard little packet to her. All the glass clinked together as she sorted through it, choosing the sleep elixir. She uncorked it, sniffed it.
"That's strong," she said. Isae and Teka were still bickering. About what, he didn't know, but he wasn't going to get between them unless they started throwing punches. ~ Veronica Roth

My mother took us there once," Cyra was saying. "That's where I learned to swim, in a special suit that protected against the cold. It might have come in handy on the last sojourn."
"Yes, you went to Pitha, didn't you?" Sifa said. "You were there, weren't you, Akos?"
"Yes," he said. "Spent most of my time there on an island of trash. ~ Veronica Roth

Your gift is odd," Cisi said. "I'm sure Mom would have some kind of vague, wise thing to say about that."
"Ooh. What was he like as a child?" Jorek said, folding his hands and learning close to Akos's sister. "Was he actually a child, or did he just sort of appear one day as a fully grown adult, full of angst?"
Akos glared at him.
"He was short and chubby," Cisi said. "Irritable. Very particular about his socks."
"My socks?" Akos said.
"Yeah!" she said. "Eijeh told me you always arranged them in order of preference from left to right. Your favorite ones were yellow. ~ Veronica Roth

As they walked down the short tunnel that led to the front gate of Noavek manor, Eijeh had whispered, "I'm so scared."
Their dad's death and their kidnapping had cracked him open like an egg. He was even oozing, his eyes full of tears. The opposite had happened to Akos.
No one cracked Akos.
"I promised Dad I'd get you out of here," he'd said to Eijeh. "So that's what I'm going to do, understand? You'll make it out. That's a promise to you, this time."
He'd put his arm over his older brother's shoulders, pulled him tight to his side. They walked in together.
Now they were out, but they hadn't walked out together. Akos had had to drag him. ~ Veronica Roth

Akos had appeared in my doorway, his short brown hair sticking out in all directions, leaning into the wood.
"What," he said, eyes wide, "is that sound?"
In spite of the current's pain shooting through me, I laughed. I had never seen him this disheveled before. His drawstring pants were twisted halfway around, and his cheek bore the red imprint of creased sheets.
"It's just the start of the Sojourn Festival," I said. "Relax. Untwist your pants."
His cheeks turned faintly pink, and he righted the waistband of his pants.
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" he replied irritably. "Next time, when something that sounds remarkably like war drums is going to wake me at dawn, could you maybe warn me?"
"You're determined to deprive me of fun."
"That's because apparently, your version of 'fun' is making me believe I'm in mortal peril. ~ Veronica Roth

I don't have to worry about little Kereseth-Noavek spawn running around someday, do I?" She yawned. "Because I really don't want to. ~ Veronica Roth

You two have spent a lot of time together," his mom said.
"Yes."
"Are you to blame for his survival these past few seasons?"
"No," Cyra said. "Your son survives because of his own will."
His mom smiled. "You should defensive."
"I don't take credit for other people's strength," Cyra said. "Only my own."
His mom's smile got even bigger. "And a little cocky."
"I've been called worse."
The vapor was thick enough. Akos grabbed the hook with the wooden handle that hung next to the stove, and attached it to the kettle. It caught, and locked in place as he poured water in each of the mugs. Isae came forward for one, standing on tiptoe so she could whisper in his ear.
"If it hasn't already, it should be dawning on you right about now that your girl and your mother are very similar people," she said. "I will pause as that irrefutable fact chills you to the core."
Akos eyed her. "Was that humor, Chancellor?"
"On occasion, I have been known to make a humorous remark. ~ Veronica Roth

She didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?" Akos demanded.
"Cyra was working with us," Teka said. "During the attack on the sojourn ship, I was supposed to take her out--take our Ryzek's Scourge while announcing his fate on the intercom, see?"
"Don't call her that," Akos said. He felt Isae's eyes on him, and his cheeks went hot.
"Yeah, yeah." Teka waved him off. "Well, she bested me, and she let me go. And then she found me, requested a meeting. She offered to give us whatever we wanted--information, help, whatever--if we did something for her in exchange: get you out of Shotet." Teka looked at Jorek. "That's why she didn't tell him. Because she wanted to get him out, but he wouldn't leave without his brother."
Jorek clicked his tongue.
Those weeks after Ryzek had threatened him, after Cyra tortured Zosita and kept up appearances on Pitha, she had let him think she was just doing whatever Ryzek said. Let Akos believe the worst of her. And all that time she was out working with renegades, giving whatever she could to get him out. It was like she had become someone new and he hadn't even noticed. ~ Veronica Roth

So." Isae had come to stand at his shoulder. "We never actually determined how we were going to get through the first door."
"Honestly, I had pretty much decided to just…smash the guard's head into the wall," Akos replied.
"I'm sure that won't draw any attention at all," Isae replied. ~ Veronica Roth

We didn't always have a planet," she said. "The currentstream was home, more than a piece of rock. Or our ship. But as a people, we are maybe more closely tied than most to our identity, because we have always had to struggle against disappearing completely. We fight for you, for your belonging, because we fight for our existence. We will surrender the one only when we surrender the other. ~ Veronica Roth

The knife point dug into Akos's skin, right over the scar Ryzek had given him.
"Vas," Eijeh said, and he sounded a little terse. Nervous? Akos thought. But it was a foolish hope. "You can't kill him, Ryzek won't allow it. So stop playing at it."
Vas grunted, and took the knife away.
Akos's body ached as it relaxed. "Is there some kind of Shotet holiday today where you visit the people you hate to make them miserable?" He wiped at the cold sweat on the back of his neck. "Well, I'm not celebrating. Leave me alone."
"No, but your presence has been requested to witness the interrogation of a confessed renegade," Vas said. "Along with Cyra's."
"What use would I be at an interrogation?" Akos said.
Vas tilted his head, a smile creeping across his face. "You were initially brought here to bring relief to Cyra on a regular basis. I assume that is the use you will be put to."
"Right," Akos said. "I'm sure that's the reason."
Vas sheathed his knife--he probably knew as well as Akos did that he wouldn't need it to get Akos to do what he said. After all, they were on a ship. In space. ~ Veronica Roth

She touched his chin to steady it as she kissed him. Her mouth was warm, and wet with tears. Her teeth scored his bottom lip as she pulled away. Akos didn't breathe. He wasn't sure he could remember how. ~ Veronica Roth

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. He still had a mark there where Suzao had choked him in the cafeteria.
Then she was moving her fingers back toward his ear, along the scar Ryzek had cut into his neck, and he was leaning 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 different kind of ache. A pang of longing, deep in his gut.
He wanted her.
Wanted to run his fingers along her strict cheekbone. Wanted to taste the elegant birthmark on her throat, and to 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 lip ~ Veronica Roth

Vas dragged me over to Akos, so we 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 him. 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 his 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. ~ Veronica Roth

Come on, Akos. I think I see something useful."
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? ~ Veronica Roth

I'm not a fool, no matter what you people think of the Thuvhesit,' Akos snapped, his cheeks going ruddy as he picked up the practice blade. 'You think I'm going to just let you set me up for a fall?'"

p184 ~ Veronica Roth

Akos was still in the bathroom. He had plugged the bathtub drain and turned on the faucets. Now he was undoing the straps of his armor with quick, nimble fingers.
"Don't tell me you don't need my help," he said to me. "I won't believe you."
I stepped out of sight of the living room and tried to lift my shirt over my head. I only made it up to my stomach before I had to stop for breath. Akos set his armor down and took the hem of my shirt from me. I laughed, softly, as he guided it over my head and down my arms and said, "This is awkward."
"Yes it is," he said. He kept his eyes on my face. He was blushing.
I had not allowed myself to imagine a situation like this, his fingers brushing my arms, the memory of his mouth on mine so close I could still feel it.
"I think I can handle the pants on my own," I said.
I didn't mind showing skin. I was far from frail, with thick thighs and a small chest, and it didn't concern me. This body had carried me through a hard life. It looked exactly the way it was supposed to. Still, when his eyes dropped--just for a moment--I stifled a nervous giggle. ~ Veronica Roth

Never thought I would be trying to heal Cyra Noavek," Cisi said. "On a transport vessel full of Shotet, no less." She glanced at him. "I can see why you like her, you know."
"I feel like…" Akos sighed, and sat down at the table next to Cyra's head. "Like I just walked right into my fate without meaning to."
"Well," Cisi said, "if you are destined to serve the Noavek family, I think you could do worse than the woman who was willing to endure all this just to get you home. ~ Veronica Roth

Vas laughed. "Better listen to her, Kereseth. Those aren't little heart tattoos she hides under that arm guard. ~ Veronica Roth

Jorek bent low, catching Akos's stomach with the tip of the practice knife.
"Not a good place to aim, Kuzar," Akos said. "In a real fight, I'd be wearing armor."
"I go by 'Jorek,' not 'Kuzar.' You've earned armor?"
"Yeah." Akos used his distraction against him, smacking the front of Jorek's throat with the flat of the weapon. Jorek choked, clapping his hands over his neck.
"All right, all right," he gasped, showing a palm. "That answers that question."
Akos backed up to the edge of the arena to put some space between them. "What question? About my armor?"
"No. Damn, that sucked." He massaged his throat. "I came here wondering how good you'd gotten, training with Cyra. My father said you didn't know hand from foot when he first met you."
Akos's anger was slow to come, like water turning to ice, but it had some heft to it, when it did. Like right then.
"Your father--" he stared, but Jorek interrupted.
"Is the worst kind of man, yes. That's what I want to talk to you about. ~ Veronica Roth

Your job is to spot things that are actually valuable. Newer current motors and engines, intact scrap metal, broken or discarded weapons. Do not cause trouble, and if you see any native observers, be courteous and show them to either me or Commander Noavek, who has just joined us. Welcome, sir."
Vakrez nodded to him, and added, "Remember, the reputation of your sovereign, and of Shotet itself, is at stake here. They see us as barbaric and ignorant. You must behave as if that is not the case."
A few of the soldiers laughed, like they weren't sure they ought to, since Vakrez wasn't smiling even a little. Akos wasn't sure the commander's face remembered how to do it. ~ Veronica Roth

Took you long enough to get here," Jorek said. "I was beginning to think you guys got kidnapped by the chancellor."
"No," Akos said. "Actually, we abandoned her in an escape pod. ~ Veronica Roth

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. ~ Veronica Roth

Akos touched her face. When he first met her, he thought she was this fearsome thing, this monster he needed to escape. But she had unfurled bit by bit, showing him her wicked humor by waking him with a knife to his throat, talking about herself with unflinching honesty, for better or for worse, and loving--so deeply--every little bit of this galaxy, even the parts she was supposed to hate.
She was not a rusty nail, as she had once told him, or a hot poker, or a blade in Ryzek's hand. She was a hushflower, all power and possibility. Capable of doing good and harm in equal measure. ~ Veronica Roth

You are convenient, but you are not necessary. Understand? ~ Veronica Roth