#ok so i’m gonna kinda hc that she still hasn’t told him about the coins yet

[serabellyms]

“ you are half my soul. “     ⤷ @mythunderlegion ✧ callum.

Ever since they’d been back, Rayla hadn’t been able to sleep. If she did, it was for no more than ten to twenty minutes before she’d snapped back awake, cursing at herself. She’d paced back and forth outside the outer door of Callum’s office three times before he opened it, and even as she tried to feign innocence, he called her out on it. It wasn’t like it was the third time this week she’d done that, or anything…

But when she asked how he’d figured it out, that was his only answer. He could be so cryptic sometimes, even if at the moment, she knew exactly what he was saying. She hadn’t even bothered to ask why he was awake; she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“I know I was—am,” she admitted quietly. She knew how Callum had felt, and the way he’d rebuffed her when she first came back… well, she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. After what she’d done, she deserved his anger; she wouldn’t have been surprised if he hated her for that. The tension between them was palpable, even if they’d done their best to keep it personal and avoid it interfering with their goals. After all, there was no reason to let that happen.

But now, back at the castle, having moved Aaravos’ prison… maybe now was the time they needed to talk. She’d yet to tell him why she’d asked about the coins; she’d been afraid to, knowing that if she did, it was a fate that could possibly await him. And who was to say Callum wouldn’t try to help? If dark magic made the coins, then it was likely dark magic that would pull them out of the coins. She couldn’t have him help with something like that. Not with the way dark magic gave Aaravos a hold over him. Even still, he’d nearly used it to save her against Finnegrin, and that had scared her even more.

But how could she admit that to Callum? How could she admit to him that what she’d asked him to do wasn’t something she’d ever be capable of? Killing him, if Aaravos got control of him? No. She could never do it. She’d been toiling with that knowledge ever since, he’d asked. With them having come so close to his prison, she was beginning to wonder if that was going to affect Callum.