A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)

by Arkady Martine

blood and stars,

“Three Azimuth’s projections make winning look—” “Unlikely, yes.

Find out why Eleven Laurel is so interested in you. Find out if Three Azimuth means to win this war or if she wants to maintain a permanent state of conflict.

After Peloa-2,

Nine Hibiscus

Two Cholla.

what Sixteen Moonrise had done on Peloa-2 had woken up the aliens and set them to full alert.

They hadn’t entirely engaged the Fleet yet. They were still testing the edges.

Sixteen Moo...

Forty O...

bloody stars,

attrition

attrition—

Forty Oxide’s

those three-ringed prowling alien ships could be anywhere.

we could so easily be lost, how dare these enemies act with such impunity—

Shame was a slow surge; so was the distant fear that she was not in control of herself, or of this Fleet.

“Trust is not an endlessly renewable resource. Loyalty might be. For longer.

we are up against something that doesn’t even bother to use what it takes—” “I think they do. I think we just don’t understand how yet.”

the Jasmine Throat

Mahit

Green things, growing things, bright stars. Flowers.

Their names are often green things and flowers. Is that significant? Question

Three Seagrass

They’d both thought the encounter with Amnardbat was going to have ended differently, Mahit suspected. And neither of them was sure why it hadn’t.

she and Three Seagrass were going to have to start all over again.

Yskandr

Twelve Azalea

Darj Tarats

make sure Teixcalaan remains endlessly at war, or be subject to Heritage’s plans.

it left all the doors of future action open. Keeping secrets always did.

there was nothing between her and Three Seagrass but three months of time, an envoy’s uniform, and deep suspicion.

the Information Ministry seal in cheery and threatening coral-orange.

covetous, excited—exactly the same as Mahit was. Acquisitiveness, a certain degree of xenophilia—

Three Seagrass had gone grey-green under the warm brown of her skin.

It made her look dead, or dying. Or like she wanted to be dead, or dying.

it was hideous, but it wasn’t noise.

I don’t know if it’s language,” Mahit managed, finally, “but it’s definitely communication.

“Bleeding sunlight,”

smiling, Stationer-style: the edges of her teeth showing.

given work to do, the two of them were apparently fine...

Nine Hibiscus

the difference between being in charge of one small but powerful thing, like a starship, and a whole lot of disparate things,

whether the new biofeedback technology was worth giving half the Fleet post-traumatic flashbacks when someone half a sector away died badly.

Cost-benefit analysis was antithetical to sleeping.

Haha so true Mee too

Two Foam.

Forty Oxide,

Imagination created biases.

Haha it sure does!

the fact that it wore clothes at all was significant.

Predator’s eyes, like a human’s.

Twenty Cicada.