The Glittering Court (The Glittering Court, #1)(106)

The Galvestons weren’t convinced, and Alice finally concluded with, “Well, there’s a magistrate in White Rock who’s one of us. You should seek his counsel before you do something stupid. She’s a threat to your faith and a threat to our success.”

When I rejoined them, they all tried to act like nothing had happened, but didn’t do a very good job. It was time to wrap up their visit anyway, and we were all a little relieved.

“Oh, Glen,” exclaimed Henrietta when she saw his bulging pocket of stones. “What did I tell you about those rocks?”

“They’re for my collection,” he stated. “I’m going to be a royal geo-geologist.”

“A what? Never mind. We aren’t going to keep hauling rocks around. Leave those here.”

Glen obstinately stuck out his lower lip, and I quickly knelt down before him. “It is a lot to carry around. Why don’t you leave them here? I’ll keep them safe until you’re able to come back for them.”

He didn’t look as though he liked that idea, but he also didn’t like crossing his mother. So, the rocks were left in a small pile by the shanty, and we waved the Galvestons off.

“Don’t say it,” Cedric said, as soon as they were gone. “I know you overheard, and you just need to forget about it.”

“It’s kind of hard to forget being called a threat to you. Or hearing that our marriage would be ‘something stupid.’”

“No religion is truly enlightened. There are closed-minded people in all of them.”

I looked him in the eye. “What are we going to do when we have children?”

“Marvel at their perfection?”

“Cedric! Take things seriously for once.”

His smile faded. “I am. And as for kids, I don’t know. We’ll teach them my beliefs, and . . . whatever it is you believe . . . which I still don’t really know. And they can make their own decisions.”

“I don’t think your Alanzan friends will like that.” It was strange. There’d been so many complications in our relationship. The scandal of it even existing. Our money troubles. The danger surrounding him. But never had I imagined that I’d be the complication in his life. “I haven’t gone through all this—given up so much—just for you to get out of bed one morning and realize you made a mistake.”

“In that scenario, the only mistake would’ve been leaving your bed in the first place.” He took my hands and pulled me to him. “In all seriousness, this issue—our difference of belief—isn’t one that’s taken me by surprise. I knew from the instant I fell for you that we’d have this looming beside us. Beside us. Not between us. We will deal with it, and we will overcome it just like we have everything else.”

I closed my eyes briefly and then sighed. “I just wish . . . I just wish there wasn’t so much we had to keep overcoming. Probably when it’s all over, we’ll just be bored.”

“The two of us? Never.”

We kissed, and he pressed me up against the side of the shanty. Somehow, the argument had made me want him even more, and heat shot through me at the feel of his body on mine. One of his hands tangled in my hair, and the other played dangerously with the edge of my skirt, pushing it up my leg.

“Be careful,” I said, unable to resist. “I don’t think this shanty wall can withstand very much.”

He pulled back, his breathing rapid and eyes hungry as they looked me over. Not hungry. Ravenous. “Now who doesn’t take things seriously?”

“Hey, it’s a credit to your prowess that I’d even think—”

I lost track of what I was saying as a flash of sunlight caught my eye. I pushed Cedric aside, confusing him even more, and knelt down to where I’d seen the sparkle. It was in Glen’s rock pile. Sifting through them, I found one that glittered golden in the sunlight. I held up for Cedric to see.

“Is it real?” I asked.

We’d heard plenty of stories in White Rock about prospectors being deceived by look-alikes. Cedric got down beside me and held the rock up. It was only a pebble, but it was solid gold.

“It’s real,” he confirmed. “Where did this come from?”

“The future royal geologist found it over by the outcroppings, heading toward the foothills. I saw it shining but thought it was some kind of crystal.”

We walked to the far side of the claim, opposite the river. The sparse vegetation thinned out even more here as the rocky land took hold. I pointed to the base of the outcropping in question. It was no mountain, but the large formation was still high enough to make me uneasy when I thought of how high Glen had gotten. And that wasn’t even near the top.

Cedric stared up at it for a long moment. “You need to meet my neighbor. Sully. Nice old guy. He’s helped me figure a few things out. His claim has some rock formations like this, and he said he nearly ground them to dust looking for gold. Apparently, there was some early Hadisen explorer who found big deposits of gold in things like these—massive deposits. Larger than anything gleaned from the river.”

I followed his gaze, and let those words sink in. “How would you be able to find out? Just start chipping through?”

“Kind of. Look, there’s a crevasse at the top. Digging into it might show something. If I can get up there—”