Yes, he wants to say. Yes, everything has a cost. Every one is a would-be conqueror in Garlemald, including of their own people. He stepped over the White Raven's corpse to continue onward into Eorzea without a second thought. He fed information to the warriors who fought at Carteneau because they were useful, and it was a way to mitigate the worst of his nation's excesses and save lives at the same time. He is not a man that wastes lives needlessly like some of his fellows who will gladly throw the lowborn into the same meatgrinder as they do the slave class or the oppressed of the provinces.

Estinien doesn't know any of that. Has no idea. Will never know, because Garlemald that exists now is falling from the mountain of bodies they built their empire on from Ilsabard to Othard to Ala Mhigo.

But all of that has a price, whether it is in Gaius' own dubious morality or something else. But he was a well-loved Legatus for good reason: he would quicker pay that coin with his own blood then that of his men.

"No," he says finally. "Not every one."