The Obelisk Gate (Broken Earth series)
Essun sunk into the communal baths with relief, heat forcing its way into her muscles to push out the day’s aches. It still felt a little uncomfortable, communal baths. But a comm took whatever forms of social bonding it could get.
A comm had to bond, like carbon. Essun could see the difference in people the same way she could sense it in the Earth’s strata. In charcoal the carbon didn’t bond right and it flaked away almost uselessly – only good for crèche drawings. Bonded properly, carbon atoms were hardest rock; Father Earth’s own claws to drill, cut and slice.