" Destiny?” I laugh, a bitter thing. “What destiny?” Everything here is blood and violence. After I graduate tomorrow, nothing will change. The missions, the rote viciousness, will wear me down until there’s nothing left of the boy the Augurs stole fourteen years ago. Maybe that’s a type of destiny. But it’s not one I’d choose for myself. “This life is not always what we think it will be,” Cain says. “You are an ember in the ashes, Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.” “I don’t want—” “What you want doesn’t matter. Tomorrow you must make a choice. Between deserting and doing your duty. Between running from your destiny and facing it. If you desert, the Augurs will not stop you. You will escape. You will leave the Empire. You will live. But you will find no solace in doing so. Your enemies will hunt you. Shadows will bloom in your heart, and you will become everything you hate—evil, merciless, cruel. You will be chained to the darkness within yourself as surely as if chained to the walls of a prison cell.” He "

― Sabaa Tahir , An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)