The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,62

One that had nothing to do with how hard I worked or the risks I’d taken but had everything to do with being a naïve, impressionable young man who didn’t know any better.

Honestly, now, I still don’t know what was true. Hendricks was my friend. But, in that moment, I could only look back at the last two and a half years, standing at his side, trying to look tough and useful and sometimes even proud, wondering if the laughter wasn’t just at my species but also at the reason they all assumed I was there.

Hendricks’ pet Human.

I pushed him off me. Too rough. Shame turned to anger. I couldn’t look at him, just down at my feet. My whole body was tense and it probably looked like I was going to hit him. Maybe I was. Fuck. He just wobbled on his feet in front of me.

He stood there for a long time, probably wondering what had happened. What had changed. Neither of us said a word. Eventually, he just stumbled his way back out the door.

In the morning, at breakfast, he sat opposite me, sipping at tomato juice and rubbing his temples. I wondered if maybe he’d forgotten the whole thing.

“You know, most Shepherds take a break after their apprenticeship,” he said. “I understand why you wanted to jump straight into your deployment but it’s been so long since you’ve had a proper holiday. How do you feel about taking some leave?”

He said it so casually it almost sounded like I had a choice.

“That sounds like a great idea. Thank you.”

“Good, good. Three weeks. Starting tomorrow. It’s enough time to go back to Sunder, if you wish. But we’re so close to the western coast. You’ve never been to Vera, have you?”

Come on. Like you don’t know every place I’ve ever been in my life.

“No. Not yet.”

“Oh, you must. It’s lovely this time of year.”

“Sure.”

“Perfect. I’ll organize you a carriage in the morning.”

Like most of the villages on the central-western coast, Vera had been built up on a hillside, over a thousand years ago. It was a tangled web of small, winding streets too narrow for a carriage. The houses were exclusively built from rough, white stone and all the doors and windowsills were the same shade of silvery-gray.

It was a beautiful old city to look at. Trying to make sense of it was another story, especially as I didn’t speak the language. Hendricks had been teaching me Dwarven and Gnomish but the citizens of Vera were a race of Elves with their own dialect.

I booked myself the cheapest room in the biggest hotel in town. There was no view, other than a little window at street level where I could watch the occasional pair of shoes pass by.

I sent word for Amari. I waited. And she came, for a night and a day. In that brief time, there were sweet things that a better, smarter, perhaps older man would have been able to hold onto, but I couldn’t see them. I could only focus on the fact that she would leave. Which she did. And I took it to mean that, just like everyone believed, I was unworthy of walking in their world for more than a moment. My time with the Opus had given me a coat and a couple of new skills but I was still the same little boy playing at life.

On the day that she left, I was sour when I should have been thankful. I started drinking and I didn’t stop. For two days, I wandered around the city getting lost in side streets and eating alone, when I ate at all.

One evening at the hotel bar, I was drunk again. As I struggled to order another drink, a man built like a suit of armor sat down beside me and repeated my order in perfect Veran.

“It’s tough, isn’t it? Traveling to areas where they haven’t learned the common tongue. Still, some say it’s worth it for the view.”

I drank my whiskey and the stranger had a beer. His name was Taryn and he was a General in the Humanitarian Army.

When the Opus was first founded, only magical races were invited to join. The Humans, who had been more prone to infighting that any other species, knew they must form their own union or risk being conquered by this new Magum organization. So, the Humanitarian Army was created to protect Human life across Archetellos. Human cities were mostly self-governed, but they all