“You’re right,” Crispin admitted. “It’s not the same.” But even as he spoke, he heard a little voice far off in the bowels of his skull whisper, You don’t believe that. He had given himself up to stop the shelling of the town—or had it been only to protect Sabine? Her life was the only one in all the village below that really mattered, wasn’t it? Sabine was palatine. His sister. A sibling to replace the sibling he’d lost. Had he been a hero when he handed his sword to Lud and stepped into no man’s land? Or only her brother?
