From Divination: A Conspiracy of Blood:<\/p>\n
Eden didn’t hesitate. He swung his sword in a mighty slanting blow against the figure – cleaving the head right through.
\nA turnip fell to the floor, half on each side of the dislodged mannequin.
\nEden was dismayed. “What the – ?”
\nTurning back to the door, he returned to the corridor, where eight men in half-armour surrounded him.
\nCaptain Mercer and the Lord Protector himself stepped forward.
\nDee and the Duchess strolled out of their place of concealment, clearly pleased with the result of their clever planning.
\nEden’s gaze swept the assembled group, settling briefly on Dee before moving to Captain Mercer with dawning comprehension. “You,” he said softly to the captain. “You betrayed us.”
\n“My loyalty is to the King and to lawful authority,” Mercer replied steadily. “It was never for sale, despite your assumptions to the contrary.”
\nAs the guards moved to take the men into custody, Eden broke away suddenly, drawing a dagger from beneath his doublet. He lunged not toward the Lord Protector, but toward Dee.
\n“You meddling scholar!” He snarled, his blade aimed at Dee’s heart.
\nCaptain Mercer reacted instantly, his sword intercepting the dagger thrust with a ringing clash of steel. A brief struggle ensued before Eden received a club to the back of the head and slumped unconscious to the floor.
\nDee hadn’t moved throughout, and would later claim to Mercer that he had been confident of the guard’s ability to save him, but in reality he had been rooted to the spot in fear.
\nMeanwhile the Duchess gave him an admiring look and Dee puffed out his chest a little in pride.
\nThe Lord Protector turned to Dee and the Duchess, “Tonight’s actions alone constitute treason by Eden, but I suspect there is more to uncover, including, perhaps, his role in the death of your Polish astronomer whose prophecy uncovered this ghastly plot.”
\nDee gently corrected the Protector.
\n“It was Master Kopernik’s skill at mathematics, combined with the predictability of celestial motion, that uncovered this plot not some mystical prophecy. And yet, for all that skill, he paid with his life so that others might keep theirs.””<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From Divination: A Conspiracy of Blood: Eden didn’t hesitate. He swung his sword in a mighty slanting blow against the figure – cleaving the head right through. A turnip fell to the floor, half on each side of the dislodged mannequin. Eden was dismayed. “What the – ?” Turning back to the door, he returned … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-predestination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1779,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1777\/revisions\/1779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jadownes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}