The Red Celestial Eagle

The military barracks were all but deserted.

Leng Qing stepped slowly inside. Nearly every Military Mage had already gone to the front — there was barely anyone left behind.

She made her way toward Wang Xiaojun's room — little more than a cramped storage closet, really, but kept with surprising neatness. The only sign of any disorder was a faint scatter of tiny gray down feathers...

"Deputy Chief Adjudicator, Wang Xiaojun doesn't hold any rank, so he couldn't be placed in the official barracks. After his brother — a Celestial Eagle Mage — went missing, I felt sorry for the kid and let him stay here under the title of Beast Tamer apprentice. Has... has he gotten himself into some kind of trouble?" Xu Ah Li, his face riddled with pockmarks, asked carefully.

Leng Qing walked into the room, her heels striking the cold floor, and lifted a photo frame from the desk.

In the photo, a young, bright-faced Military Mage had his hand pressed down on Wang Xiaojun's head — the boy couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. The soldier was grinning brilliantly, while Wang Xiaojun wore an unmistakably reluctant expression, apparently fully convinced of the curse that said getting your head patted would stunt your growth.

Behind them stood a Celestial Eagle — snow-white, powerful, and tall, its head lifted with an air of unmistakable pride.

Wang Xiaojun was cradling a gray egg in both hands. The tenderness in his grip left no doubt how much he treasured it.

"This kid treated that mixed-blood Celestial Eagle like a jewel — raised it all the way to now. It was the last thing his brother gave him before he left. Normally the Beast Taming Corps doesn't allow these gray Celestial Eagles, but since the boy's a martyr's family, everyone looked the other way. He's still young. Always going on about becoming the Western Fortress's greatest Celestial Eagle Mage. I know he disobeyed orders, but surely that doesn't warrant the Deputy Chief Adjudicator personally coming to lay charges. If there is a punishment to be handed down, ma'am — given how young he is..." The pockmarked Beast Tamer Xu Ah Li had no idea what had actually happened, and simply kept pleading on the boy's behalf.

Xu Ah Li had been no more than a nodding acquaintance with Wang Xiaojun's brother. On the surface he was harsh and impatient with the boy, but underneath he couldn't help caring for the poor kid. Wang Xiaojun was nearly eighteen — nearly old enough to officially enlist as a Military Mage — and Xu Ah Li had no intention of letting that get ruined over some infraction.

"Gather his belongings and bring them to me," Leng Qing said, placing the photo frame back on the desk. She turned to the pockmarked Beast Tamer who had taken the boy in. "And have Military Commander Ming Kuo posthumously award him the rank of Celestial Eagle Mage. He'll understand."

"Celestial Eagle Mage — you mean give him the rank of Celestial Eagle Mage??" Xu Ah Li stared at her, bewildered.

Then something shifted. The color drained from his face. His voice dropped cold, barely his own: "You just said... pos... *posthumously*?"

*Awarding* the rank of Celestial Eagle Mage and *posthumously awarding* it were two entirely different things.

To *award* meant the person received the title in person from their superior. To *posthumously award* meant the person could no longer receive it themselves — because they were dead.

Xu Ah Li wasn't high-ranking, and he'd had no way of knowing what had transpired in the Western Fortress strategy room. When someone of Leng Qing's standing had shown up here, he'd assumed the kid had done something monumentally stupid.

"I'm sorry," Leng Qing said quietly, shame in her voice. "We failed to protect him."

Xu Ah Li went rigid.

He couldn't accept it. One more year — just one more year — and Wang Xiaojun would have officially become a Military Mage.

No one knew better than Xu Ah Li how desperately that boy had wanted to be a real soldier. Only Xu Ah Li knew how much he'd wanted to follow in his brother's footsteps and become a Celestial Eagle Mage — even if the eagle he'd raised had gray feathers. That determination had never wavered, not once.

Xu Ah Li felt as though the air had left his lungs. He needed to know what had happened.

"Xu Ah Li! Beast Tamer Xu Ah Li! Beast Tamer Xu Ah Li!"

A shout rang out from somewhere outside the barracks. The voice echoed again and again, but Xu Ah Li couldn't bring himself to respond.

"...I'm here." His voice was hollow.

"There's a red Celestial Eagle heading for your eagle watch post! Someone recognized it — thinks it might be one of yours! We're not sure whether to take it down — get out here, fast!" the logistics worker shouted.

Xu Ah Li was baffled. He had no memory of ever raising a red Celestial Eagle.

"Let's go see," Leng Qing said.

The two of them hurried out of Wang Xiaojun's room and made for the eagle watch post at a near-run.

A cluster of logistics staff and a handful of combat personnel had already gathered there, apparently debating whether to treat the approaching bird as a threat.

When Leng Qing and Xu Ah Li arrived at the post, they saw it — a reddish-gray Celestial Eagle lurching through the low air, staggering and struggling its way toward them.

The eagle was flying with tremendous effort. Several times it seemed about to plummet straight to the ground, and yet each time it beat its wings and hauled itself back up.

At last it drew near — no more than fifty meters from the watch post.

Xu Ah Li's eyes went wide.

He had never raised a red Celestial Eagle. That was because it had never occurred to him that what he was seeing as red... was blood. A shocking, gut-wrenching red.

This was no red Celestial Eagle. It was a Gray Eagle — drenched from skull to talon in blood. Across its head, its neck, its wings, its body, its claws — not one place was free of savage wounds. Not one place free of crimson.

The blood was still dripping, soaking into its gray feathers, staining the whole bird red.

Xu Ah Li had served in the military for decades. He had witnessed more death than he could count, and long ago assumed he'd forgotten how to weep.

But when he watched that blood-soaked Gray Eagle come stumbling down onto the watch post — and when he saw the boy draped across its back, barely a flicker of life remaining in him — something broke, and scalding tears came flooding out.

Leng Qing stood frozen.

This Gray Eagle...

It had carried Wang Xiaojun home.

All that distance — through half a battlefield still reeking of blood and slaughter — it had brought its little master back, "safe and sound."

Until there was almost no blood left in it.

Its gray feathers, drenched crimson.

After landing, the mixed-blood Celestial Eagle never rose again. It collapsed before them all. Its half-broken neck turned, one final time, toward where Wang Xiaojun lay. The light had gone out of its eyes completely.

It was dead.

Leng Qing had seen countless Celestial Eagles of noble lineage — formidable in battle, their plumage a spotless white. But from this moment on, the one she would carry in her heart was this mixed-blood eagle with its gray feathers.

Such was the master; such, too, was his beast — so worthy of reverence that all one could do was weep without sound.