Should the Ayatollah's earthly tenure reach its terminus before 1945 — pardon, 2045 — prediction markets on Kalshi suggest the succession question is rather less murky than Tehran's inner councils would prefer to advertise. At 66 percent, the death-settled variant of this contract has crystallized around a single presumed heir with a conviction that its companion market — wagering on succession regardless of circumstance — conspicuously lacks. The divergence is the story. When a market priced against mortality bets more confidently than one priced against mere politics, seasoned observers of these curious financial auguries take notice. The gap implies that certain factions, certain arrangements, and certain quiet understandings are believed to snap into place precisely upon the occasion of a vacancy — contingencies that ordinary succession, whenever it arrives, may not so neatly satisfy. With $114,000 in daily volume, this is no parlor curiosity; real money is backing a real theory about who holds the threads of clerical power in the Islamic Republic.