Angel of Earth & Bone (The Book of the Watchers #2)

Prologue

Hildur, Queen of the Elves

It was never a good sign when an angel came to Earth.

As the Queen of the Elves laid yet another soldier’s helmet atop the smoldering pile of skulls and mangled metal, she could only imagine what kind of terrible omen awaited her when two shot down from the sky.

She inhaled sharply. A rotten stench coated the air—death, blood.

They’d already brought war; what else could the archangels possibly want from her?

Placing her palm on what remained of the fallen soldier, she resumed her prayer with a curt sigh. “Leyfeu mér ae reika um skóga tína, leyfeu mér ae renna meefram ám tínum—”

“Hildur.” A voice interrupted her.

She hadn’t sensed their footsteps, but the Angel of Earth’s essence, her words, pulsed in the scorched dirt, in the deep canyons of her fjords, in the icy slopes of her mountains.

The earth spoke to the angel—fields rustling and canyons yawning and trees curling in worship—but now, it cried for help.

The pointed tips of Hildur’s ears twitched. The scent of morning dew cut through the filth and the frenzied roar of a sea drifted on the breeze—the Angel of Water was here, too.

“Gaia,” Hildur addressed the Angel of Earth. Her hand remained on the lifeless body. She didn’t want to let go; didn’t want to face what she had lost. Her eyes too dry, her soul too empty to cry anymore.

“We need to discuss our next move,” Gaia pressed.

Once a powerful queen, now a widowed, desperate woman struggling to hold the seams of her kingdom together, Hildur barely had a shred of dignity left to face the archangels.

But this, this was too much.

“You turned my realm into an elven burial ground.” Slowly, Hildur looked over her shoulder. Her lavender irises flared—sharper than twin daggers. “And now you want to talk strategy?”

The angels glanced at each other. How curious. They were nervous. Hildur could only wonder what kind of scheme they were concocting telepathically.

“We need to.” The Angel of Water stepped forward, her robes fluttering in the endless wind, her piercing blue eyes hopeful. Little did she know that all hope had been buried with the dead. “Chthonia may be retreating, but we can’t let up—”

“So send your kind to the slaughter,” Hildur snarled, turning to face them fully. “It’s a never-ending battle between your realms. Go fight it somewhere else. You’ve done enough to the Huldufólk.”

The sky cracked open. Lightning parted the dark clouds, striking one of her mountains. Rock and ice fell swiftly down its face, slamming into the ground far below. A plume of mist rose from the pile.

Mira, Hildur thought her name was, flinched as if she’d been pinned under the debris.

Then the world fell silent, as if it were holding its breath.

Even the whines of the dying cavalry had quieted.

A ripple of hurt shot through the elf queen, but she kept her jaw tight and her brows folded, her heart stronger than stone—it was the only way to rule, even if the deaths of her people ate her up inside.

“We’ve summoned every Nephilim within the Arctic Circle.” Gaia’s pearly white wings quivered. Hildur wasn’t used to seeing them untucked, so out and free, but she supposed it made a powerful statement on the battlefield. “No one is answering the call. We cannot uproot people from their homes.”

Hildur’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you think you’ve done to mine?”

The elf queen stepped over a dismembered hand. Blades of grass sprouted under the thuds of her boots. Ancient magic rushed her veins and gathered beneath her footsteps, leafy tendrils coiling over the dirt, over the open grave of a once-flourishing fishing village.

The angels stilled. They didn’t swallow, they didn’t inhale. Two ivory statues as stark as delicate snowflakes against this muddy, wretched world. The only thing that moved was their stares tracking, scrutinizing, the elf.

“Because this war is on my soil, because the Huldufólk are not Empyrean blessed, does our ruin mean nothing to you?” Hildur spat through clenched teeth. “Are we nothing but weeds for you to stomp on?”

Mira’s shoulders fell. “Of course not. You are our partners.” She reached out, but Hildur shook off the touch, the metal of her armor clanking, the dried blood staining the silver brown.

These angels, with their pristine feathers and their freshly pressed velvet robes. What did they know about partnership, about sacrifice? They’d been holed up in their towers half this war. She’d been fighting alongside her people the entire time.

“I will not have history repeat itself,” Hildur said, drawing air into her lungs, curling her rich tawny fingers into a fist so tight the joints cracked.

More rocks slipped down the mountain face, the heavy stones grating against the ice and echoing across the fjords.

Mira dropped her chin. The heavens followed her cue, storm clouds swirling and swollen, threatening rain. Another bolt splintered the sky; the light flickered off her soft features. Thunder growled like a ravenous cave troll in the distance.

“A legion of archangels is on their way,” Gaia pressed. “We can’t give up now.”

“Dear Gaia”—the elf queen’s voice cracked, raspy from the battle calls she’d made to her elven army over the clash of blades and violent rips of flesh—“I have nothing left to give.”

An icy wind blew across the grounds, biting the cheeks of the angels so they were red and raw, whipping loose strands of Hildur’s strawberry blonde hair out of her braid.

She returned to the pile of bodies, quelling a sob that was dying to be let out.

Bringing her middle and pointer finger to her lips, she sealed each visible dead elf with a kiss before shakily grabbing a nearby torch and igniting the makeshift pyre.

Heat pressed against her armor as she finished her prayer.

This time the angels stayed quiet. She deserved as much—to mourn her people, her land, in peace.

For ten short minutes, nothing but the crackle of the fire made it to Hildur’s ears. Then she moved, her legs leaden, thighs screaming. The bones littering the ground snapped like sticks beneath the defeated drags of her feet.

A single tear slipped down her cheek as the flames grew behind her, and she went to leave the battlefield for the final time.

“Hildur!” Gaia shouted.

“We are done,” the queen seethed. She didn’t bother to turn around; her eyes remained fixed on the glacier in the distance, on her castle wavering like a mirage, and the snowcapped mountain behind it.

It wasn’t the first war the elves had been dragged into, but as Hildur walked away, she vowed it would be their last.