The Harbors of the Sun (The Books of the Raksura #5)

by Martha Wells

People like her hunted and worked and made art and had sex with their friends and at some point had a clutch or two or three on their way to old age. They didn’t become witnesses to the end of their world.

And “weak” wasn’t really the right word for what Shade meant. What he was trying to say was harder to express. It was giving in to feelings other people thought you were supposed to have about things that shouldn’t have happened to you in the first place, but were not like the actual feelings you did have. There wasn’t a word for that in Raksuran or Altanic or Kedaic or any other language Moon knew.

“People die, Root, and sometimes it’s like losing a limb. It always hurts and you never forget.”

“You can’t ignore them because you don’t like to talk.” “I can.” There was nothing ironic in the angle of Pearl’s spines.