Mammoths at the Gates (The Singing Hills Cycle, #4)

by Nghi Vo

“Myriad Virtues, why have you done this?” “For sorrow,” she said. “For grief, and for remembrance. Humans don’t understand grief, not like a neixin does.”

I should apologize, Chih thought, and then, in their head, someone much younger said them first.

We are not beasts, and I know this because no goat grieves as I do. No raven will have her own wings cut so she can no longer fly. No crocodile will bear a wound because it is better than forgetting. I wish I were a beast.