The wind stirred the grass.
The air was quiet—too quiet. The thunder of distant cannons echoed faintly now, as if muffled by the hills and the old trees that leaned over the Saar. Lili sat cross-legged beside the girl who had once been her Sergeant. The girl who now looked just like her.
They were both naked, their bodies still warm from rebirth, skin unscarred, hair golden and soft. The sunlight filtered down through the trees in dancing patterns. Insects buzzed nearby. A frog croaked from the reeds.
It was… peaceful.
And yet, the world beyond that peace was marching to war.
The Sergeant—no, not Sergeant anymore—was still sitting, hunched forward, her arms loosely draped over her knees. Her fingers twitched occasionally, as if her hands expected to hold a rifle that wasn't there.
Her face was unreadable.
Lili tilted her head.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
The girl didn't answer at first. Then she looked at Lili, at her twin reflection, and spoke softly.
"Do I look okay?"
"You look like me," Lili said cheerfully.
The girl snorted.
Then sighed.
"…I don't know who I am anymore."
Lili crawled closer and sat beside her, their shoulders brushing. "You're still you. Just… fluffier."
"…Great."
They sat in silence for a while.
Then the girl spoke again, lower this time. "I can hear gunfire. South, maybe west. Pattern sounds like volleys. Maybe single-shot rifles. Low rate. Black powder, probably. Close range."
"You know that just from the sound?" Lili asked.
The girl gave her a flat look. "It's all I've known for twenty years."
Lili nodded solemnly. "It's not infected."
"No."
Lili blinked. "So… what do we do now?"
The girl didn't answer.
She stood slowly, her limbs still shaky, and scanned the treeline. She moved with the grace of a soldier, even in a child's body.
"We're exposed," she muttered. "No cover. No equipment. No allies. Don't know the language, the culture, or the political structure. We're barefoot. Naked. Identical. And obviously not from here."
She looked down at herself again. Her lip twitched.
"…And I'm a nine-year-old girl."
"Cute one," Lili added helpfully.
The girl groaned.
She turned away, walked a few steps, then stopped. Lili watched her. She could tell the girl was thinking. Calculating. Fighting herself.
Then she said, "Tanya."
Lili blinked. "Huh?"
"My name. I'm Tanya now."
"Isn't that your mother's name?"
"Yes."
Silence.
Lili stood and stepped beside her. "It suits you."
Tanya didn't smile. But her shoulders relaxed, just a little.
Then her head snapped up.
There—on the breeze—was the smell of fire. And something else.
Cloth.
She turned toward a break in the trees.
Laundry.
A thin trail of smoke marked a chimney, and a white sheet fluttered behind a fence. A small farmhouse, no more than 200 meters away.
Clothes.
Tanya gestured. "Come on."
They moved slowly, cautiously, sticking to the trees. They reached the fence, ducked beneath it, and approached the line. Children's clothes. Small boots. Linen trousers. Simple vests.
Tanya moved like a ghost.
She passed Lili a shirt and nodded.
And together, the twin angels dressed—awkwardly, but quietly.
Ready to step into a world that didn't know their names.
Not yet.
But it would.
---
The clothes were stiff with line-dried roughness, the boots a size too large, but it didn't matter. Lili wriggled her toes inside the worn socks and grinned as she fiddled with the brass buttons of her vest. Tanya, meanwhile, buckled the belt of her new trousers with slow, methodical hands—every motion a silent ritual of adaptation. Even now, with the body of a child and none of the tools she once relied on, her mind was already mapping options.
When they were clothed and half-presentable, Tanya spoke in a voice low and sharp.
"Stick close. Keep your head down. Don't speak unless I tell you."
Lili gave her a thumbs up and an exaggerated salute.
Tanya exhaled through her nose. Close enough.
They crept beyond the farmhouse yard, slipping between trees and hedgerows. The sound of battle had grown louder. Gunfire echoed in rolling waves, punctuated now and then by the thunderous crash of cannon. The acrid bite of powder burned in the air, mingling with smoke and the faint tang of blood.
They moved up a low hillock through tall grass, Tanya pushing aside stalks gently with her forearm, Lili following in her shadow.
Then—
"Down," Tanya hissed.
They dropped flat behind the rise.
Before them, the land sloped down toward the northern edge of the town. A battered stone bridge arched over the river below, and beyond it, the town of Saarbrücken was engulfed in chaos. Flames licked the roofs of nearby homes. Smoke coiled around the church steeple like a viper. And in the midst of it all, soldiers fought.
Thousands.
Tanya narrowed her eyes.
Men in red trousers and blue coats charged the bridge in waves, muskets raised, bayonets gleaming. Their movements were bold, but disorganized under fire.
She traced their path across the water—then further—past the bridge, past the rubble—and found them.
The defenders.
A line of troops crouched behind a crude wall of barrels and sandbags, firing in volleys. Pale blue trousers. Spiked helmets. Precision and discipline. Tanya's brows furrowed.
She followed the line of their formation. Her eyes scanned for banners.
And there—above the smoke—a flag.
White, with a black eagle at its center.
Wings spread wide, claws bared.
A memory stirred.
Not precise, but familiar.
Tanya's breath caught.
> An Imperial eagle? No… too crude. But… maybe a local auxiliary? A forgotten garrison?
It was impossible. And yet...
She squinted harder.
No warp beacons. No comm towers. No auspex drones. And yet here they were—men in uniform, fighting with courage, beneath an eagle. Not hers, perhaps. But something close.
Lili peeked over the grass beside her.
"Is that… one of ours?"
Tanya didn't answer right away. She was thinking. Fast.
Everything was wrong—the uniforms, the weapons, the buildings. But the language of war was universal. This was a military unit, organized, pinned under fire, holding the line.
She assessed the enemy: too many. The attackers had numbers and momentum.
> A local rebellion? Some planetary cult uprising?
> Or a civil conflict. But who? What world is this?
She ground her teeth.
Then she saw a Prussian soldier take a musket ball to the shoulder and drop.
Lili gasped.
Tanya made a decision.
> "We're going down there."
Lili blinked. "To help?"
"Of course to help," Tanya snapped. "They're holding the line. That's all I need to know."
She crouched, tightening the laces of her boots.
"I'll find an officer. Figure out who they are. If they're friendly—we stay. If not, we vanish."
Lili nodded, her eyes wide. "We're gonna save them, right?"
Tanya looked at her for a long moment.
Then gave the smallest nod.
"Yeah. If we can."
They stood.
Side by side.
Two small figures silhouetted against the smoke and sunrise, their shadows long in the grass.
And without another word, they began to move.
The cobbled streets stretched before them—narrow and curved, winding like ancient veins through the heart of a town built stone upon stone, generation upon generation.
Tanya led the way, her boots clicking softly on the uneven stone. Lili followed just behind, her steps lighter, more curious. Their boyish clothes hung loosely on their frames, the sleeves too long, the trousers cinched at the waist with twine. The sun cast dappled patterns through the overhanging eaves of red-tiled roofs. Smoke drifted faintly from chimneys and fires not yet quenched by morning.
They moved like shadows, sticking to the edges of buildings, slipping between carts and crates, ducking beneath hanging laundry and low arches. Tanya's eyes never stopped moving.
Everything was wrong.
The architecture. The materials. The scale. The absence of any vox-post, any purity seal, any servo-skull. No sigils of the Emperor. No Mechanicus glyphs. Not even the scent of plasteel or recycled air.
She paused at a corner and pressed her back to the wall, peeking out into the main avenue.
Lili stopped beside her.
"Where are we?" she whispered.
Tanya didn't answer.
Because she didn't know.
> We're not on an Imperial world. Not even a colony.
Her heart pounded—not from fear, but from the weight of knowing they were completely, utterly alone.
A sound broke the stillness.
A voice—harsh, guttural—called from a window above.
Tanya and Lili both flinched, flattening against the wall.
A woman leaned out, waving frantically, her apron flapping in the breeze. She yelled again, pointing toward them. Her voice was urgent, but not angry. Concerned.
Lili looked up.
"What did she say?"
"I don't know," Tanya murmured.
The woman kept shouting. Tanya could make out the rhythm of it—structured, intentional. But the words meant nothing.
> Another language. This world has its own tongue.
She cursed under her breath. Lili pressed closer to her side.
Other faces appeared in windows. Men. Women. Children. Wide-eyed, whispering.
Some pointed.
Two soldiers—a pair of spike-helmeted men—ran past the street's far end, not seeing the girls. The gunfire was louder now.
Tanya looked down at Lili.
"We need to move. People are starting to notice."
"But they don't sound angry," Lili said softly.
"They don't have to be." Tanya's eyes narrowed. "If we don't know the rules, we play it safe."
She took Lili's hand and led her down a side alley. The sound of a church bell rang in the distance. The smell of bread lingered in the air. And above them, the town watched.
Two strangers.
Two impossibilities.
Walking alone in a world not yet ready for them.
They moved carefully through the narrow lanes behind the houses, sticking to the shadowed sides of garden fences and hedgerows. The town had the air of a place half-asleep, half-drowning. Gunfire still cracked beyond the rooftops, but here—between the backyards and broken alleys—there was only the whisper of wind and the distant cry of frightened birds.
Tanya led, her steps calculated, her eyes scanning every corner, every window. Her hand hovered instinctively toward her hip where a weapon should be. But there was nothing. Just borrowed boots and a borrowed body.
Lili followed close behind, her smaller frame bobbing along with practiced quiet. Her eyes darted to the doors and windows they passed, some shuttered tight, others left wide open in panic. She could feel something—some hum in the air, like pain soaked into the stones.
Then, as they turned the corner past a low garden wall and stepped into a shaded courtyard, they saw them.
Men.
A half-dozen, maybe more. Laid out in rows beneath a sagging canvas awning stretched between two barns. Most were conscious. Some moaned softly. A few were still. Their blue-gray uniforms were torn, soaked with blood. A woman knelt beside one of them, applying pressure to a wound with shaking hands. A priest—old and gaunt—moved from man to man, whispering hurried prayers, crossing each forehead.
A makeshift triage post.
Tanya grabbed Lili's arm and pulled her back behind the corner.
"Wounded," she whispered. "Local med point. Could be guarded."
Lili peeked. Her eyes widened. "We should help."
"No," Tanya snapped, then softened. "Not yet. We don't know what they'll do if they see what you can do."
Lili bit her lip.
"But they're in pain," she whispered.
"I know. But we don't know these people. What if they think you're a witch? What if they try to take you?"
Lili stared back at the wounded. At the way they twisted in agony. At the boy no older than fourteen with a shattered leg, biting into his sleeve to keep from screaming.
Her chest ached.
Then she blinked.
A warm ripple moved through her core.
There, standing at the edge of the courtyard, was a woman with streaks of gray in her hair, apron stained with blood, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Her hands trembled, but she didn't falter. She moved from soldier to soldier, trying, always trying, even when her fingers slipped on blood.
And around her—
Light.
Faint. Hidden to all but Lili.
She saw it the way her power allowed—the goodness, the will to help, the desire to heal, the love that clung to this woman like soft threads of gold.
Lili stepped forward.
"Wait!" Tanya hissed, grabbing her wrist.
"She's kind," Lili whispered. "She won't hurt us."
Tanya stared at her.
"You can tell that?"
Lili nodded. "I see it."
Tanya hesitated.
Then let go.
"Stay close. No miracles. Just… help. Quietly."
They stepped into the courtyard together. A few heads turned, but no one shouted. No one questioned. The wounded groaned louder than any protest. The woman with the gray-streaked hair looked up as they approached. Her eyes widened at the sight of two identical children in tattered clothes.
But she said nothing.
Lili knelt beside a soldier whose bandage had slipped. Blood pulsed slowly from his side. His face was white.
"Bitte," he whispered. "Hilf…"
"I've got you," Lili whispered back, though he couldn't understand her.
She placed her hands on his side, over the cloth.
She didn't let the light show.
She just let it leak—like warmth soaking through stone.
The bleeding slowed.
The man exhaled.
The woman—nurse or midwife perhaps—watched, her eyes narrowing. Then she moved to another soldier without a word, allowing Lili to continue.
Tanya crouched beside another man, whose leg had been splinted poorly.
Bone fracture. No infection yet. Amputation would be the Imperial standard.
But she didn't have tools. Only her hands.
So she adjusted the leg. Smoothed the binding. Tied the knot tighter.
And for the first time since they had arrived on this strange world, Tanya felt a moment of peace.
She wasn't Sergeant Voss.
She wasn't a man, or a soldier, or a ghost.
She was just… helping.
The priest approached them cautiously, mumbling words in a language they did not know.
He looked down at Lili, then at Tanya.
He made the sign of the cross.
Lili blinked up at him and smiled.
The priest stared.
Then said, very softly:
"Engel…"
Tanya tensed.
But Lili just smiled again.
And returned to her work.
---
The courtyard was quieter now.
The cries of the wounded had dulled to groans and whispers, their agony thick in the air like smoke that refused to lift. Blood seeped into the cobbles, soaking into the earth as if the ground itself drank the cost of war. The priest knelt beside a man who had stopped breathing five minutes ago, murmuring Latin that even he didn't believe would reach the ears of any god still listening.
Lili moved like a shadow through the rows of bodies. Her tiny hands, glowing faintly, touched skin and cloth and blood. And wherever they passed, wounds sealed, fevers cooled, sobbing quieted.
Frau Gerda had stopped asking questions.
She no longer feared these girls.
She had seen one of the dead open his eyes. She had seen torn flesh knit itself together. And she had watched this golden-haired child—this strange, pale little angel—do it all without panic or pride.
Now she simply watched.
But Tanya stood back.
Hands clenched. Eyes narrowed. Breath measured.
Her gaze followed Lili with a soldier's scrutiny. Every movement was cataloged, every decision noted. The way Lili touched a man's chest and leaned forward, whispering softly in a language none of them knew. The way the men calmed. The way some of them smiled before drifting into painless sleep.
And all the while, Tanya stood by, heart hammering.
Not from fear of the enemy.
But from fear of herself.
Because her hands itched. Her core stirred.
And she knew—she could feel it—that she could do the same.
And yet...
She didn't move.
Instead, she did what she knew.
She moved to a soldier with a cracked femur, the man writhing and moaning beneath a makeshift splint.
Tanya crouched beside him, her small hands steady despite her childlike frame. She assessed the splint—nothing more than two pieces of firewood and twine. No pressure stabilization. No antiseptic. No support sling.
She frowned.
The bandage was a length of torn apron cloth, soaked through, knotted unevenly.
His rifle—lying beside him—was a bolt-action weapon barely functional by Imperial standards. Iron sights, no energy cell, no data imprint. Just brass and grease.
His helmet—a black leather spike-topped thing—was more ceremonial than practical. It might deflect a blade, but a lasround? Or a stub shell? Worthless.
The soldier groaned again.
Tanya applied pressure gently, adjusting the leg, retightening the splint as best she could. The man's teeth clenched. He muttered something in their strange language.
She didn't understand him.
But she understood pain.
She wiped her brow with the back of her sleeve and moved to another: a man with a fractured collarbone. Another with a gashed hand. Each time she tried to help with what little was there—linen, boiled water, salt. But it felt like trying to hold back the tide with a bucket.
> They're not soldiers, she thought bitterly. They're boys playing at war with toys and hope.
She looked around—at their weapons, their uniforms, their wounds. No augmetics. No neural stabilizers. No stims. No combat drugs. Just cloth, powder, and prayers.
She felt her anger rise—not at them, but at the world. This world. So far behind. So helpless.
She clenched her fists.
> How do they survive like this? she thought. How have they not all died?
She turned and looked at Lili.
Still moving.
Still healing.
Her hands shimmered like candlelight in the dark. And around her, the broken mended. The dying slept.
And Tanya—
Tanya still stood apart.
Then she heard it.
A sound. Faint. Fragile.
A boy's moan.
She turned.
He lay in the far corner, alone, half-covered by a blanket. The bandage on his stomach had soaked through hours ago. Blood pooled beneath him like black wine. His face was pale, lips blue. He moaned softly, a sound like a dying lamb.
Frau Gerda knelt beside him, pressing her hand to his cheek.
"Er ist zu schwach," she murmured. "Er stirbt."
The priest moved to his side and offered the sacrament.
But there was no urgency. No attempt to stop the bleeding. Only resignation.
Tanya watched.
And something broke.
She stepped forward.
No one stopped her.
A few heads turned—faces drawn, pale with pain and disbelief—but no one moved to intercept. There was something in the way she carried herself, in the quiet certainty of her steps, that silenced even suspicion.
Her boots echoed softly on the cobbles.
She knelt beside the boy.
He couldn't have been more than sixteen. His cheeks were smudged with soot and streaked with sweat, his uniform stained and crumpled where it hadn't been shredded. One trembling hand still clutched a scrap of paper—likely a letter from home—though the ink had run with blood.
Tanya reached out.
Her hand hovered over his chest, uncertain for only a breath. Then she lowered it, pressed her palm to the thin fabric of his tunic.
The boy stirred.
His eyes fluttered open, unfocused, glazed with fever. He stared up at her. His lips moved.
"Engel…?" he whispered.
Tanya froze.
She didn't answer.
She didn't know the language. She didn't know what he was asking.
But she knew pain. She knew fear.
And she knew she couldn't watch another child die.
> To hell with it.
She closed her eyes.
Her breath caught.
Then slowly, she reached inward—into that place behind her heart where the light dwelled. It was not loud. It didn't roar or crackle like a weapon's charge. It whispered. Like coals under ash. Like a memory waiting to be touched.
She drew from it.
Not with grace. Not like Lili.
But with sheer, stubborn will.
Her core stirred.
It was smaller than Lili's. Duller. Slower.
But it was hers.
She forced it forward—down her spine, through her chest, into her arms, her fingers. Her hand began to glow. Faintly at first. Then brighter. Then brighter still. Like a candle fed by breath.
The warmth surged.
Unsteady. Untamed.
But alive.
She pressed it into the boy's side.
He arched beneath her touch.
For a moment she thought she had hurt him. That her light was too raw, too new.
But then—
His body relaxed.
His breathing slowed.
His lips parted, and a soft, steady breath escaped.
The priest, who had stood ready with final rites, gasped aloud.
Frau Gerda dropped the bloodied cloth she had been holding. Her hands fell to her sides, trembling.
And Tanya opened her eyes.
The blood was gone.
The wound sealed.
The boy lay still—but not in death.
In sleep.
Peaceful.
Tanya stared at her hand. The light faded. Her palm tingled. Her core quieted.
And then she stood.
Slowly. Carefully. Like someone learning to walk again.
A hush fell over the courtyard. Every eye was on her now—Lili's included.
The priest stepped back.
Frau Gerda crossed herself twice.
No one spoke.
Until—
"Wie machen sie das?" a man murmured. His voice was hoarse, awestruck. "Sie reden wie Kinder, aber… sie heilen wie Heilige."
"Was sind sie?" another whispered from behind a cart. "Engel? Hexen?"
Tanya said nothing.
She turned toward Lili, who stood a few paces away, her expression unreadable. For a moment, Tanya thought the girl might scold her. But then—
Lili smiled.
And nodded.
And Tanya—her hands still warm, her chest still thudding—nodded back.
In the corner, Johann Fricke leaned up on one elbow.
He had watched it all—watched as these two strange girls moved among the dying like dreams. No one else seemed to understand what had happened, but Johann did.
He didn't know their language.
He didn't know their origin.
But in the moment when the golden-haired girl touched his brother's friend and brought him back from the edge, he saw something he would never forget.
He saw hope.
And he would remember their faces until the day he died.