The eastern alliance signing was scheduled for the twenty-second day after Dorian Valdris's first visit to Ironveil.
In the intervening weeks the framework document had traveled east, returned with seven proposed amendments — three of which were substantive and legitimate, four of which were negotiating positions that Dorian had flagged as such in a cover letter written with the kind of transparent pragmatism I was coming to recognize as his consistent mode — and traveled east again with our responses. The three substantive amendments were incorporated. The four negotiating positions were met with counter-proposals that acknowledged the underlying concerns while preserving the document's structural integrity.
Dorian accepted all four counter-proposals without further negotiation.
"He's
