A Memory Called Empire (Teixcalaan, #1)

by Arkady Martine

Here is the grand sweep of civilization’s paw, stretched against the black between the stars, a comfort to every ship’s captain when she looks out into the void and hopes not to see anything looking back. Here, in star-charts, the division of the universe into empire and otherwise, into the world and not the world.

Even a barbarian would know enmity; it was a rote diplomatic phrase. It was what you had before you started a war.