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“As do I.” With a conniving grin, he tipped his head to her and left the room.
Rune waited a moment before he looked at Elle, the blood pumping hard through his veins. “Did you hear what I heard?”
“Viking outpost?”
He nodded. The possibility of it aligned far too closely with the lore of the box.
She jumped in place and then scurried to the closest table of maps. “Then let’s find this land mass.”
Two hours later, after scouring countless maps and atlases, they had found three land masses that were eerily similar to the shape of the drawing from the ring mosaic. Two of them islands in the northern seas and one across the ocean.
“I don’t know—look at the top left on Smøla.” Elle pointed to the curvature of the land mass just off the coast of Norway. “I know some of the tesserae were missing there, but I don’t see how the lines could match up quite right, especially with the two odd peninsulasjust below the missing area.”
“The rest of it is so similar, but I think you’re right.” Rune nodded and pointed to the weathered, crinkled map next to it. “And on the Antigua map, the eastern edge—while it curves the same—the proportion is amiss when compared with the rest of the island and I have to think that odd bay would have been captured in the lines as they were on the mosaic.”
Elle moved to the adjoining table and picked up the last map, the edges curling along her fingertips, and brought it over to the table where they had placed several silver candlesticks for better light. She set it atop the other maps, stepping back, crossing her arms in front of her as she stared at it. “So that leaves this one.”
Rune’s fingers tapped along the edge of the most recent sketch that Elle had done in the Bronze Chamber that married what was left of the mosaic on the wall with the wood blocks they’d pieced together. A mostly complete picture of the island and the ring set over it.
“I think that’s it.” The words came out of his mouth with disbelief evident, the possibility that this could be the place cutting the air in his lungs by half. “I think it’s it. But where on there? That’s a big island.”
“It is.”
His gaze flipped back and forth from Elle’s sketch to the map. “Have you ever thought it odd, the placement of the ruby on the ring in the mosaic?”
“That the ruby is in the lower right, instead of upright, jutting out the top? Yes. That’s how a ring would normally be drawn—or at least how I would naturally draw one.”
Rune pointed to the map and the curvature of the southeast shoreline. “What if the ruby is the pointer? What if this”—his fingers tapped on an inward curve, a small bay—“is what we’re looking for? It’s a bay, maybe an inlet.”
“I do—I see it. It’s something. A start if nothing else. You truly think it’s what we’re looking for?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, then looked to her. “But I have to hope. It’s in northern waters, Vikings settled there. The coincidences are too strong to ignore. And I want that box out of your hands. I want you safe. I don’t know that I even care what we find there, as long as the box is gone.” His words raw, they startled him for the ferocity with which he said them.
He meant them—more than anything. Her safety was now the most important thing—more important than what he’d come here to the Isle of Wight intending to do. He’d known that fact for days, though he’d been ignoring it. Not until that very moment did he realize how very much he would trade away for Elle.
Anything. Everything.
Before he did something stupid like tell her what his true mission was, his look dipped away from her and he set his knuckles along the edge of the table.
He leaned over Elle’s map, his stare on the black pencil lines, searching. Searching for something—divine intervention would be nice—that proved they were on the right trail. If only he could bring the box back to its true home—that was the only thing that would ensure Elle would be truly safe.
Elle reached out and wrapped her fingers around the back of his right hand, squeezing it. “We’re going to Iceland, aren’t we?”
“Can I suggest at this point that it’s a ‘me’ instead of a ‘we’?”
Her mouth went to a tight line. “No, you cannot.”
His gaze tore away from the map and he looked at her, at the determined excitement sparking in her blue eyes. If he left her behind he knew full well her fury at him would mean he would lose her forever—not to mention she would be a target without any protection.
As much as it pained him, he had to concede she would be safer with him than apart from him. He nodded. “Then yes. We are going. And I know just the ship to get us there.”
While instinct demanded he drag the box away from her, hide her away somewhere where no one could find her and hurt her, he knew he couldn’t do it.
So he had to protect her, no matter the cost to him.
{ Chapter 17 }
“Lord Kallen is going to be irate with you for making us miss the supper.” Elle passed by Rune as he held the library door open for her, her body sliding along his.
