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Plus, there was the very real possibility that the Vanguard had simply not handed over all of their Rainlord prisoners. Raul certainly hoped that everyone would be recovered from this venture, but he and many of the others were trying to temper their expectations. It was already a miracle that they had managed to find any of their kin at all, let alone this quickly. They didn't want to get their hopes up too much.

Apart from the Lord Elroy, perhaps. Raul wasn't sure what to make of that man's state of mind during all this.

In the end, they'd decided that they would eventually free every single reaper they could find, Rainlord or not. It would be too easy to miss someone if they didn't. But before they could reach that point, they needed to be picky. Retrieving the reapers was only going to get harder and harder as time went on, until a full scale battle broke out, so they wanted to exploit the element of surprise for as long as they could.

Thus far, the first reapers to be recovered had been the ones with servants of mid-level strength. Which was helpful, of course, but the real prizes were Wen, Lonogren, and Jostomere. They were the reapers of Octavia Redwater, Rayen Merlo, and Santos Zabat, respectively. Those were the three most powerful Rainlords among those who'd been captured, and it was no coincidence they were each the head of their House.

As far as Raul knew, that had always been the way of things, historically speaking. Rainlords led by strength. It was a relatively rare occurrence for the defacto strongest member of a House to not become the leader.

That was just one more reason why Cousin Melchor was so strange.

Raul had asked the man about it, once. About why he'd repeatedly refused to step into that role.

"Everyone has their place, but not many want to acknowledge it. Too often, people are either overly ambitious or totally insecure. I am neither. I know my worth, exactly. I know what I can do for this family, and I know what I cannot. My role shall always be only to support and advise."

Even after Ismael's passing, Melchor had again rejected the call.

And many within House Blackburn had not been happy about that. For his part, Raul just tried not to worry about it too much. If the great Cousin Melchor's role was only to support and advise, then Raul's role must've surely been to just do as he was told.