The Valdris Pack research arrived at my desk by late afternoon.
Cael had been thorough — he always was, but this particular file was exceptional even by his standards. Twelve pages of dense, carefully organized intelligence covering the Valdris Pack's history, territorial boundaries, bloodline records, and current political status. He had pulled from three separate source networks and cross-referenced everything, flagging the points of convergence with the particular precision of someone who understood that the difference between useful intelligence and dangerous misinformation was exactly this kind of verification.
I read it twice. Then I sat back and looked at the ceiling for a long moment.
The picture it painted was this:
The Valdris Pack occupied a significant stretch of eastern te
