Aven was fifty-eight years old, and he was tired of wearing formal silk.
As the Dominion's senior diplomatic analyst, he had spent the last twenty years traveling between Ashenveil and foreign capitals, negotiating trade routes, managing border disputes, and lying politely to very powerful people.
Today, he was in Korthane.
The decennial review of the Concordat of Equals was taking place in a sprawling, open-air pavilion overlooking the glittering southern ocean. The air was warm, smelling of salt and citrus. The Korthane diplomats wore flowing, brightly colored robes. Aven wore the severe, high-collared black uniform of a Dominion senior official. He looked like a crow at a peacock convention.
He sat across a low marble table from a man named Thessan. Thessan was the Arbiter's senior mortal administrator, a man whose smile never reached his eyes.
