A Time for Witches by Craig Schaefer

Author:Craig Schaefer [Schaefer, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781944806224
Publisher: Demimonde Books
Published: 2020-10-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Corinth, Maddie thought, will be a good place to put down roots.

It was time. Jason had given her children, two young and healthy boys, and they needed a place to grow and thrive. The sun was bright and the world was new, and her family had their entire lives ahead of them.

That was the day, standing out in the pasture behind the humble cottage they were slowly turning into a home, that Jason told her he was leaving.

She was so stunned he had to repeat it. The words couldn’t penetrate the shock that enveloped her like a cocoon. So he said them again, sharper, until they cut their way through and buried themselves in the bloody meat of her heart. His face had changed; his eyes were different. He didn’t look at her like his wife, or his lover, or his companion.

He looked at her like an inconvenience. And she wondered how long he’d felt that way. How long he’d been hiding it because he needed her help, time and time again. Her witchcraft had saved his doomed quest. He had won the Golden Fleece with her aid, when he would have been devoured by its guardians three times over. She’d saved him from the flames of fire-breathing beasts and taught him how to defeat an army of warriors grown from dragons’ teeth. She’d risked her life to slay the mammoth golem Talos; he would have sent the Argo to the bottom of the sea if she hadn’t been there to protect her lover and his crew.

She had opened her legs to him. She had borne his sons.

“The Princess Creusa accepted my proposal. She’s not the king’s first daughter, but she is his favorite. I may never take the throne of Thessaly, but Corinth is fine compensation.”

“What about the children?”

“They’ll be fine. They’re too young to understand. I’ll send for them once I’ve arranged for their care.”

Her heart beat faster. She looked to the cottage windows. On the other side of the dusty glass, she could see the peasant woman they’d hired to tend the boys’ cradles.

“You’re not taking my sons.”

“They’re my sons,” he said. “And they’ll be raised as princes. They’ll never need for anything. Never hunger, never suffer. If you were really a good mother, you’d want this for them.”

“What about all I’ve done for you? You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me. All of your success, all of your glory, came because I gave everything I had to support you. Don’t you have any gratitude?”

Jason shrugged.

“I gave thanks. To Aphrodite. She’s the one who made you fall in love with me. So if you’re angry…blame her, not me.”

Her mind was tilting, capsizing, her this-can’t-be-happening horror at war with stark reality.

“You made a vow,” she said. “We stood before the altar of Hekate and you promised—you swore—that you’d love me forever. That you’d be mine and mine alone.”

He looked calmly into her eyes, so casual he might have been discussing the sunny weather, and delivered the words that shattered her into a thousand pieces.

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