The joint investigation began immediately, with Cornelia's intelligence operatives working alongside my own to map the pattern of deaths across the eastern territories. What we discovered in the first week was both more complex and more disturbing than either of us had anticipated.
"It's not random," Lyra reported during our morning briefing, her voice tight with the strain of processing information that challenged everything we thought we knew about territorial politics. "The deaths follow a specific sequence designed to destabilize existing power structures while positioning particular successors for leadership roles."
"Successors chosen by whom?" Cornelia asked. She'd been staying at Blackmoor for the past week, coordinating our joint operations from my war room.
"That's the interest
