The negotiation collapsed on the second day over a single word: Tekarr.
Westyn had presented the council's terms with the professional precision that two missions to this table had refined. The kingdom would recognize orcish sovereignty in the southern territories. The word invasion would remain in the preamble. The frontier line would follow the geographic committee's adjusted proposal. The Horde would withdraw behind the border within thirty days.
And Aliyah Winters would remain at the Tekarr Arch.
Khao'khen heard the provision through Sakh'arran's translation and his expression did not change. The expression's absence of change was itself the change, the specific stillness that the chieftains had learned to recognize as the stillness that preceded the decisions that reshaped the campaign's direction.
