Glass Souls (Reflection Book 1)

by Clairisa Campbell

  If I was wrong, and I was Luna, what would I tell my mother? The one who got me through everything. I’d be lying to her, living with the fact that the soul of her daughter had vanished. That she had died in the place of a stranger. I had to believe my own intuition. I was her daughter.

  I am Rayne Higgins.

  The cloud of doubt was forming, but I had to grasp onto one identity for the time being, so I chose my own.

  I wiped the tears from my eyes and started the descent to sleep.

  I caught a glimpse of Loic passing the door as Chase stopped him in the hall. The door closed as he glanced at me. I took the stone off since I had to actually travel this time, setting it on the headboard above me. At this point, I didn’t care what they were talking about. I just tried to sleep.

  SIX

  ♦

  Truth

  MY WISH TO GO nightmare-free was ignored again. It was my usual nightmare, except details were a little clearer this time. I was in a stone dungeon with shifting shadows all around me. Water dripped constantly and echoed back into my ears. The air was even thicker, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

  I couldn't see much more because the looming shadow of my attacker blocked the little light there was in the room. He stood what looked like an arm’s length away from me. The light left from behind his back gave me an outline of the silhouette of his form. Standing over me, larger than any person I had met as well as wider, with broad shoulders.

  He moved, and a stinging feeling had slashed a crossed my cheek and shoulder. The water dripping over me cooled the burn but made me shiver. This cycle continued over and over. Soon stinging turned into stabs as the pain began cutting into my skin instead of welting it.

  There was a moment where the pain stopped, and the room was silent. The man got closer to me. He seemed to speak more clearly than he had the previous time when I had had this dream.

  "Now to finish the job. But then someone won't have a Reflection. There wouldn't be balance. Can't have that, can we?"

  I didn't understand what he meant, but I didn't have time to reflect on it. Pain ran through me and light flashed around me. I was in the woods.

  The woods were clearer than usual. I felt disoriented and hurt. There was some light shining through the tree canopy. The trees circled me taller than my twisted vision could comprehend. The grass and mud were tinted red again as well. I closed my eyes and felt pressure wash over me. This wasn’t how the nightmare usually went. It seemed faster somehow.

  I didn't stay in the woods for long. I believed my nightmare was over. There was nothing but darkness around me.

  Upon opening my eyes again, I was in the in-between. The trees had been replaced with dark water.

  I looked around for the shadow. Would I see him again? A chill ran down my spine. I turned to see the shadow with its back to me. It didn’t react to my presence, continuing to look into the void of dark water around us. I tried to back away from him but like a current, I was pulled back to my starting position.

  The movement seemed to make the shadow react. It moved towards the void and after a bit, it stopped.

  “No…not this way.” The shadow spoke. “Another dead end.”

  What was it talking about? The shadow turned to face me, and I got a glimpse at its large humanoid form. It had two large red eyes that looked like red open scratches with no pupil.

  I gasped. Water filled my lungs.

  The shadows eyes slanted, looking right at me.

  “Ereht si ohw?” It spoke in a garbled tone as if his words were being etched into glass as he spoke them. My lungs burned, and my mind raced.

  Looking above me, I saw a hand reaching for me. I instinctively grabbed it and closed my eyes, letting the hand pull me up.

  The pressure lessened slightly. A voice came to me. So close, and yet, still unreachable.

  The voice spoke, muffled at first. The pressure around me faded completely, and the voice grew louder.

  "Rayne, wake up! Come on, it's okay.” Loic’s voice. He was the one calling me.

  My breath returned. I sat up quickly. Our foreheads hit hard, made a loud crack. He fell back, cursing under his breath. My head rang loudly, and everything blurred for a moment. I felt warmth from above my head and the ringing lessened a bit. I reached to the source of the warmth and felt the tiara, warming up making my head feel a little better. My vision cleared. I saw him on the floor by the bed I was on. Dark old wood rafters came to my vision first above me. Turning my head, I looked to see the small simple kitchen I remembered from before. The white sheets below me, and a feint candle smell brought more memories forward and slightly familiar setting finally started to make more sense to my drowsy mind.

  I was at Isha’s home, in Luna’s body again. At least I survived the trip. Loic rubbed his head as a bruise formed where our heads had smacked. He looked at me, his expression starting at annoyed, but melting into a lighter state of relief.

  "Are you okay? You stopped breathing. Chase was worried you wouldn’t make it through the in between. I had to try and pull you out.” He got up from the floor, sitting back at the bottom of the bed. His eyes latched on to me, seeming concerned. “I’m just glad to see you grabbed my hand. Even I was starting to worry there.”

  I’d almost been lost. Tears welled up in my eyes. My words choked up in my throat. I reached out for Loic, who slid closer to me. I fell against him and cried. I felt him cringe at first but after a few seconds he wrapped his arms around me and let me bury my face in his chest. His bare, well-toned chest. I didn't care. He was so warm, so safe.

  After seeing that shadow and nearly drowning, I needed something sturdy to hold onto.

  "Hey, it's okay. I'm here. No one is going to hurt you, Princ!” He caught himself. “You’ll be safe, Rayne.”

  I sniffled, then my face warmed as I realized just how muscled his chest was. As I looked, I saw just below his pecs there was a rather large gauze patch. Could it have been a leftover wound from the Formless attack? I looked a bit more and saw dark spots that looked a bit like a tribal dragon tattoo curled in a circle shape. I held my breath and said nothing. A tattoo covered up. Was it new or something he didn’t want anyone to see? The only people I knew with tattoos were some students from my class. I didn’t know the etiquette surrounding them. I wasn’t surprised that Loic would have one.

  He shifted, and I saw him looking down at me cautiously. He must have seen my reaction. No hiding it now.

  “S-so, a dragon tattoo?”

  Loic’s expression shuttered. He pulled away from me and stood from the bed. Blocking me from seeing the tattoo, even as he held out his hand to me.

  He moved to leave but got stopped nearly bumping into a small stool that was at the foot of the bed. he stumbled a bit, shaking his head. I too shook my head as the bruise throbbed, after a few moments of awkward silence between the two of us the ringing in my head ended almost completely.

  “Isha’s spell reacted quickly I see…” He winced and held his head. “Damn it that hurts.” He muttered.

  Isha’s spell? Did she enchant the tiara or something? It did clear up the dizziness, so I couldn’t complain. I’d leave that to Loic. Loic’s hand was still outstretched so I reached for it and stood up. He wavered a bit.

  I took the tiara off and held it close to a small cut from the front gem on his forehead. The cut healed up; he looked my way. My head pulsed as, bereft of the tiara’s help, I finally felt the bruise and headache. Loic held me up and supported me against his shoulder. Back into the tiara’s light, which eased the throbbing again.

  He chuckled a bit, through his pained face. “Well, that wasn’t expected.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered,

  We stood silently for a bit until we were both sure of our balance. Then Loic took the tiara from my hand and put it back on my head. His expression still looked pained, but he was hiding it a bit better now. "Hey, are you okay now? You did have me worried.”.


  "I-I worried you? I'm surprised you care about me. I'm not your princess, so it’s not like you owe me or anything."

  "No, I don't,” His tone stung a bit. He sighed and continued, "but I won't just let Rakesh get to you. I let him get to Luna, and it destroyed everything. I won't make that mistake twice."

  "You still wish I was Luna."

  He sighed. "Yes, deep down I want to know I didn't fail, and that I could actually protect the one person who mattered the most. Don't we all have wishes like that?"

  “I guess I know what you mean.”

  “What is it you wish for?”

  “My memories after the accident. I relearned my name, and to recognize my family but my childhood memories never came back. What my hobbies were, where I lived, what I did with friends, all of that vanished. I’d love to have a few of those back.”

  He opened his mouth to speak but stayed quiet.

  “I know what you want to say…” He looked away. Acknowledging my prediction.

  I frowned. “I stand by how I feel. I am Rayne Higgins. Do you want to know how I know? Have you ever had that event that made you so happy you want to cry and smile all at once? Elation? That moment that you feel great no matter what you faced? Mine was hearing my name back then.”

  He looked at me in silence. My mind filled with the day I finally got my name back.

  ~

  My mom was at my side then. She had been working with me to help me relearn it.

  She had said that before, if she called my name, I wouldn’t react like I wasn’t being spoken to. This day it must have clicked.

  “Rayne honey, I’ll be back. I just need to speak with the doctor.”

  “Okay.” My younger self reacted.

  She stopped in her tracks.

  “Rayne?”

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  She came back to my side, tears filling her hazel eyes and the biggest smile on her tired face.

  “You know your name?”

  “Y-yeah.” I was confused at first, then it hit me how important it was.

  “My name is Rayne,” I started, double checking that I had it right. “My name is Rayne.” I said with more pride the second time.

  She hugged me and cried into my shoulder.

  I sighed as the memory faded. “That moment I wasn’t sure why just my reaction felt so good. But it felt real. After everything that had happened and all that I had lost. That moment stuck with me.”

  Loic’s reaction surprised me. He looked away for a moment, avoiding any eye contact with me, his lips were pressed together, and he kept opening his mouth to maybe speak but he never said anything. He also ran his fingers through his hair again, ending when he scratched at his cheek and covered his mouth with his thumb. I imagined he wanted to say something about what he thought but he saw why I was so defensive. The source of many years of pain, I think he understood in a way.

  He turned and took the stool he almost tripped over and sat for a bit. She looked up at the ceiling, his eyes glancing back at me a few times but never staying long. After sitting silently for a minute, Loic got up and walked back over to the side of the bed near me and nudged my shoulder.

  “Sorry,” He muttered.

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “I may want to be right, but I should have kept it to myself.”

  “Just knowing you understand, even a little, helps. Thanks, Loic.”

  "Don't thank me yet.” He brushed his hair back, fidgeting with the ends a bit. “We still have to keep you safe.” His tone got gruffer and more foreboding. “The day Rakesh dies, you can thank me."

  “Right. About this Rakesh guy—what can you tell me about him?” I asked.

  "Nothing that the Light Weavers can't. Well, except that he's a bastard who needs to hang for each person he has killed. I doubt they'd use such colorful language.”

  I stayed silent, processing all of that. A mixture of unease and curiosity turned my stomach.

  This person was that horrible? I had never seen so much anger and violence as I saw now in Loic’s face. His muscles were stiff even as he shifted the weight on his heels. Like he just wanted to spring and attack. His lips were pressed together as I saw his jaw shift, grinding his teeth.

  “He really deserves that much?"

  "Much, much more. He nearly destroyed Mirror Image. We evacuated as many people as possible, but, because of the Formless, we couldn't save everyone. We were lucky to get who we did out. There are Reflections scattered all over this world now.”

  “Isn’t that hard to keep track of that many people?”

  “Chase has ways. But we did keep people out of the way of their counterparts. We had to split up a lot of families.” Grief stole over his features.

  “Why?”

  “Picture finding a place where the parents of a family were safe from their Originals, only to discover that the children’s Originals lived in that city. The panic of the moment led to those knights to separate the family rather than relocate them. Then when Chase found out, the knights involved either vanished or were killed protecting their groups. For some families we don’t know where they were relocated.”

  My mouth dropped open. Those poor people. “Then what are you doing about that?”

  “We can’t do much,” He shrugged. This world is big and trying to find some lost children is…difficult, to say the least.”

  Loic’s tense movements became softer. His eyes wandered, looking away from me. Like he was recalling an old memory.

  “Did you have to do that to any families?”

  His fists clenched. “No…”

  Wouldn’t that be a good thing? His reactions made me think that something worse happened.

  “Let’s just say, I owe it to a few kids to stop Rakesh.” He stopped taking a deep breath before whispering something to himself. “ym spuorg reven edam ti taht raf.” He whispered in that language again. Even though I couldn’t understand what he said, the words were soaked in pain.

  My heart sank. To have to take kids away from parents was bad enough, but to have anything else happen. All while trying to protect people. Far worse. And this all happened twelve years ago. A long time of separation.

  Loic fell silent for a bit. I stayed silent as well. the look on his face got to me. The downturned mouth, his eyes facing down at his feet. Picking at old memories wouldn’t make the atmosphere any lighter.

  I've never felt that pain. Losing someone that close to start with, then following it with causing loss for someone else. The closest I had was when my grandpa passed away. My heart was still for that.

  Thinking back on it, I felt no pain because I didn't remember my grandfather at that time. This was my regret. My version of what Loic felt right now.

  Loic had his actions, of splitting families, I had knowing my grandfather’s last memory would have been me hiding behind my mother, the only person I remembered, then treating him like a stranger. Mom had said we used to be close, that we did everything together before the accident. I remember him reaching out to me, and I backed away from him. I remember him crying at that moment. I couldn’t help but look in fear as I stared at a stranger who soon died before me. I didn't cry. I couldn’t.

  To this day I wondered if he had seen the full picture from in heaven. If he knew I regretted not facing my fears back, then. Or if he had forgiven me in any way.

  I closed my eyes and thought back to Loic’s words. Imagining if I were a child, lost like I was back then. But instead of death taking Grandpa, I was picked up and taken away. Lost in another country, another world.

  Knowing later it had to happen but not wanting to accept it.

  My thoughts were interrupted by Loic’s thumb against my cheek. He had moved far closer, towering over me like a shelter. He forced a smile on his face.

  “Don’t start crying now princess. If you start then I’ll follow, and I put a lot of work in the mask I have to keep.”


  “Sorry.” I wiped my eyes dry. He turned away doing the same. He took a deep breath, and his form relaxed a little.

  “Anyway, to continue.” His eyes went back to being serious and angry. “Rakesh’s punishment should never end. Killing him would be too merciful."

  "Wait, what?" The pit in my stomach only grew deeper. Loic turned away. His shoulders rose and fell with his breath, attempting to calm down again.

  “Sorry. I have more than a few problems with him. He ruined so many lives." Loic stopped and thought to himself in silence for another moment. “On the other hand, haven't we all?”

  What did he mean by that? The families? Or did the darkness in his eyes at this moment mean he’d done something worse?

  Loic’s cell phone went off. I jumped. He answered it with a grumble.

  “Yeah, yeah on my ass as usual.” He rubbed his eyes and the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I got her. We’re going now.” Then he hung up.

  “Alright, ready to leave?”

  I didn’t peg him to have a cellphone. It looked like it was made of crystal and glass. The shape of an unfolded flip phone that, after he finished talking, folded up just like any other phone. I was dumbfounded.

  Loic followed my gaze and showed me the phone.

  “Is it really that interesting princess? Your jaw is going to fall off.”

  I traced the phone with my finger. “Is this really a phone?”

  “No, it’s a selenite charm.”

  “Selenite? As in the crystal?”

  “Yes, it’s easy to enchant since the stone itself is soft, and it takes to magic well.”

  “But to use it to talk?”

  “Selenite is found everywhere. You just need to link two stones that come from the same piece and then apply a charm to it. Chase, Isha, and I all have one from the same cave.”

  The stone was white with striations that ran its entire length, hitting the light lit up the lines to leave a silver shine. those lines led into strange runes that took different shapes. Loic tapped my shoulder.