"Do not mistake my will to live as craven," Gaius says, muscles slowly tensing under Estinien's hands. "It is not a desire to return home or to return to comfort that drives me. I asked him only time enough to hunt Ascians to extinction to free my people. After that, my life was his. I care not what he does with it."

Will to live? No. Will to hunt the beings that have driven his country for a century, creating a war machine that he found himself a cog in all for an alien's pleasure? That is the thing.

"I will take all of their tools, one by one, and I will see Garlemald freed. My mask hangs among theirs, another tool removed from their use. I will take the rest, by my own hand, should not your Warrior friend catch the rest. Every pawn down brings us closer to -- that thing, that Emet-Selch who puppets them."