(Found) Ex-soldier in fantasy world betrays alliance of magical creatures...

[Bridgett Zeroe]

Novel

Found in general fantasy section in a NY public library in mid 2010s

Themes: betrayal, redemption, tragic love (substory), the human condition

Plot: the story opens up in a school of some kind where a teacher is teaching a multi-race class about the subtle appearance differences between the races that were once much more drastic before the destruction of magic
The romantic subplot is mostly in flashbacks though is also present as the ex-soldier visiting the building where his lover had been frozen as a tree
(Background) after his family was killed the protagonist was recruited into a military force of magical creatures before magic was destroyed. Though he didn't realize it at the time, he was meant to be a kind of mascot for the military force who had had clashes with humans over the protection of rare/endangered yet dangerous magical beings. The protagonist gets special treatment from the leader of this force for unknown reasons, but eventually betrays this magical military for a human supremacist organization when he finds out the magical force had protected the magical beast (a hydra maybe?) that ended up killing his family. He gives up information he had stumbled upon about the center/source of magic. The human supremacists attack it, the protagonist is put in prison. The human supremacists win and magic is destroyed, wreaking havoc on all magical creatures and the ex-soldier manages to escape the prison
(Uncertain) the primary plot was about the ex-soldier, the one who betrayed magic. he is tasked by someone to investigate rumors of atrocities that seemed to have been committed by vampires trying to restore themselves to their former immortal glory using bone marrow. the investigation spans the novel, and near the end the ex-soldier nearly meets his end at a non-human brothel

Setting: main plot takes place in a dystopian city that remains after magic was betrayed/destroyed. There are numerous races mentioned, but at a minimum there were humans, vampires, werewolves, and faeries/elves however the nonhumans were devoid of magic and more humanoid due to the destruction of magic

Characters: protagonist is a jaded human man with either tattoos or brands for each of the major turning points in his life prior the novel: Acolyte, Soldier, Prisoner
love interest subplot was a elf/faerie that turned into a tree before the main plot begins
background character: leader of magical races' army was somewhat close to the protagonist, an elf/faerie.

Language: English

Cover: Possibly a shield with tattoo designs on it. I believe some words along the lines of Acolyte, Soldier, Prisoner being presented prominently but it could have been title or just a thirst phrase.

Target audience: adults

 

[The Judge]

The background and setting is almost certainly from The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold, though I don't recall its opening, so the book you're looking for may perhaps be one of its sequels which I've not read. But I thought it was published only around 2020, so your time frame of mid 2010s throws me a little, and the cover is a kind of stylised map, rather like the Rivers of London novels.

 

[Danny McG]

so the book you're looking for may perhaps be one of its sequels which I've not read

Just to add to the find by The Judge

It's in book three in the series - "One foot in the fade"
This has the Fae person trapped into a tree.

From the book:-

Amari.
No. But it looked just like her. Almost.
It was another Forest Sprite. A Fae who had been petrified when the Coda happened. She’d been left alone in the woods with her body growing out of control. Amari, when she was still in her frozen Fae body, had me to take care of her. To trim back the weeds. To get rid of the moss and the mites. To protect her. This Fae had been stuck here, alone, slowly overtaken by her own power.
Theodor looked into the hole, then back at us. Confused, I imagine, by my reaction and to Khay’s knowledge that there had been the body of a Fae tucked inside the tree.
“How did you know?” asked Theodor.
“I could see her. I could see her face. Not in this world, but… in the other.”

 

[Bridgett Zeroe]

The background and setting is almost certainly from The Last Smile in Sunder City by Luke Arnold, though I don't recall its opening, so the book you're looking for may perhaps be one of its sequels which I've not read. But I thought it was published only around 2020, so your time frame of mid 2010s throws me a little, and the cover is a kind of stylised map, rather like the Rivers of London novels.

This is definitely it; my dates must be wrong. I go through spurts of reading obsessively, in retrospect I must have read it during the covid boredom. Or I secretly obtained one of Luke Arnolds drafts before it was published /j

Thank you!