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The reaper’s skeletal face wore an expression that Hector didn’t recognize. Was that... annoyance? Mixed with anger, perhaps.

‘I’m going for it,’ said Garovel.

‘Going for what?’ Hector asked.

Instead of answering him, Garovel drifted forward and began speaking rather loudly in Valgan. Whatever the Sandlords had been saying was lost as everyone turned to Garovel.

Of course, Hector couldn’t tell what was being said, but there was only one thing that he could imagine Garovel would be telling them here and now.

All things considered, the Sandlords hadn’t required much convincing. If anything, they seemed relieved. Perhaps they’d been hoping this whole time that Hector and Garovel would take the Rainlords off their hands and had just been too polite to come right out and ask.

As soon as they had their consensus, the entire atmosphere of the meeting shifted. Word was sent almost immediately to the Rainlords in Egas about the offer of asylum, and from there, the meeting became about how they might actually be able to sneak four hundred fugitives from the Vanguard out of the country.

It was very quickly agreed upon that simply trying to fly everyone to Atreya was not going to work. Even if the Vanguard wasn’t watching all their borders like a hawk, the Lorentian government’s Air Traffic Control would certainly be suspicious of a sudden fleet of private jets in their air space.

The Sandlords were talking about splitting the Rainlords up into several groups and trying to sneak them out separately in all different directions.

But Hector saw that expression on Garovel’s face again.

‘Please excuse my use of Mohssian here,’ said Garovel, ‘but I would like my servant to understand what I am about to ask of you.’

A heavy silence elapsed as the Sandlords waited. Lord Abbas gave a nod from the other end of the table.

Garovel returned it gratefully, then addressed the bearded man on Abbas’ left. ‘As I recall,’ said Garovel, ‘Hahl Duxan controls a passage to the Undercrust, no?’