A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)

by Arkady Martine

tell them about Teixcalaan. And what could she say? I love it; it almost ate me and all of you together; I can’t tell you a single thing?

“I wish I could see it,” Eight Antidote told her, knowing he sounded like a kid, asking for things he couldn’t have, and not being able to help himself from doing it.

She brushed Mahit’s wrist with warm fingertips as she passed by, and Mahit followed her easily, thinking of flowers that turned toward sunlight, and less pleasant tropisms—gravity wells, the attraction of insects to rot.

Nine Hibiscus was large and sleek, solid muscle under a generous curve of fat: all hips and smooth outcurve of belly, broad shoulders and broad chest, thighs like the steady steel T-bars that constructed station decks. She looked like someone who could never be moved.

No, I will not be Teixcalaanli, I am incapable, I know, let me hold the bleeding lips of this injury open for you to see the raw hurt inside. To say, I would never compare myself to one of you, with full consciousness that she would, and had, and could not stop.

Language is not so transparent, but we are sometimes known, even so. If we are lucky.