Gentle Eyes of Evil

Chapter 17: Veratine

As she was promised, Harriet had her weapon at the end of her bed by the next morning, like a present on Christmas day. She woke up slowly that morning, noticed the object at the end of her bed, and crawled to it once awake enough.
The bow itself was pitch black, with pink spikes at either end, the string was a deep cherry red in colour. The most noticeable detail on the weapon was a name engraved on its side, Harriet was engraved in gold on one side, and Veratine on the other. Ikuna had named the weapon. As for the arrows, they came in a holder with a strap beside the bow itself, the arrows were a beautiful pale yellow in the body with bright pink tips and pink feathers on their backs. In each arrow was its number engraved in black, ranging from #1 all the way to #15.

Harriet took hold of the bow in her hand, gripping it exactly where the handle had been indented to fit her finger shape exactly. She admired the bow for a minute or two, looking at every piece of it and picking up every detail. After seeing what the bow had to offer and how it held, Harriet placed Veratine and the arrows under her bed. No one ever went into anyone's room without confirmation so this shouldn't be a problem, besides, Harriet always made sure to lock her door anyway as she didn't trust her parents or brothers not to snoop around.

Of course the princess knew she couldn't just go in guns blazing for a job like this. The murder of a king would surely cause a scandal, should she be found out. She needed practice with Veratine, and also to figure out a way to keep the blood of her fathers murder from her hands. For now, though, Harriet just headed downstairs to join her family for breakfast that morning. As her bare feet tapped along the cold marble floors, Harriet heard the familiar sound of quickly paced running behind her, as she turned she saw the smile of a very well known face and felt arms wrap around her from behind.

"Good morning, Josie"
Harriet giggled softly as she glanced at the girl, whose head was on her shoulder. Josephine gave her a wave and her body a slight squeeze before letting go and taking Harriet's hand, dragging her excitedly down the stairs for breakfast. Of course, Harriet went along with her, she'd do anything to keep that girl happy.

Downstairs, the two girls found the few members of their family that bothered to show up, which consisted of just Luna and Eclipse. Jace had woken up hours earlier and was out training in the arena, Sophie was out shopping with Leo's credit card. Leo himself was upstairs in his room, trying to find a reason to leave the bed that day, his children weren't even considered as a second thought.

Luna, for the first time ever, seemed to be happy. He still looked in a state, with bags under his eye and looking overall weak, but he had a small smile. The promise that he would be a father, and might be able to save a child's life from experiencing the same lack of a childhood that he did, filled him with hope. While he hated the child's mother to death, he would still love that child dearly.

Eclipse looked her usual happy self as she munched down on some burnt toast. She looked over to Harriet and Josephine as she noticed them come down.

"Mornin' girls!"
She greeted them with a smile and a wave, taking a bite of her toast.

Harriet looked at the toast and lifted an eyebrow.
"Can you not use the toaster or something?"
She asked as she sat opposite Eclipse, with Josephine sitting down beside her.

"Hey, I can use the toaster! I just like my bread like this, what's the issue?"
Eclipse questioned, putting the toast down and folding her arms as she spoke with her mouthful.

Harriet just smiled and rolled her eyes.
"No issue, just make sure you have at least something that doesn't look as dark as your horn."
She joked with a soft giggle, covering her hand with her mouth.
"Besides, that can't taste good right?"

"It tastes fine!"
Eclipse insisted, taking another bite that came with an audible crunch. Harriet watched the coal-coloured crumbs fall onto the plate as she sighed with a smile.

"Whatever you say"
Harriet then looked over to Josephine
"What do you feel like?"

Josephine pondered this very difficult question for a few seconds, she then had a lightbulb moment and wrote her answer on the notebook in her hand, showing it to Harriet.


"Oreos!"
She had written. Harriet giggled and smiled at her, placing a hand on the girl's head.

"Josie, it's far too early for sweet things"
She informed her sister. Josephine turned her pad back around and added to it.

"Waffles then"
She wrote with a smile as she showed it to Harriet. Harriet sighed and nodded.

"While still not the most healthy, it's an improvement. Alright."
Harriet clicked her fingers, with Nova appearing at her side after a small ball of blue fire, he bowed to the princess and took their orders. The breakfasts came and went each within minutes, Josephine was just hungry, and Harriet knew she had quite the day ahead.

After breakfast, the siblings each departed again. With Harriet joining her eldest brother out in the arena, Eclipse scrolling on her social media downstairs, Luna having gone back up to his room, and Josephine having a nap on the sofa besides Eclipse.
"Jace?"
Harriet called as her eyes scanned around the arena, searching for her brother.

"Yeah, what's up?"
Jace replied from across the arena as he plunged his sword into a training dummy. Harriet made her way over to him and watched what he did, her eyes widened a little as she was impressed by his strength.

"Listen, how much do you know about bows?"
She asked
"I know you're like...the soldier of the family, so I thought you'd be best to ask about this"

Jace let go of the sword's handle, leaving it inside the dummy as he looked at her.
"I mean as a soldier we're required to practice with each weapon that can be used in combat. So, I'd say I'm pretty decent, why do you ask?"
He tilted his head a little with curiosity.

"I was just wondering if you could train me, ever since the war I've been wanting to expand to more long-range weapons given...well, what happened to Josephine."
Harriet replied, bending the truth on her reasoning just slightly as to not reveal her plan. She spoke about what happened to Josephine with a slight mutter, the topic clearly still upset her. Jace nodded to her as his lips curled upwards into a sympathetic smile.

"Sure, I'd be happy to teach you. I will warn you that I'm not the best at long-range, since I'm usually a sword user."
He replied as he reached a hand down and yanked the sword out of the dummy's torso, quickly healing up the tear he had made.

"Aren't there any specialists? Like other soldiers that do use long-range?"
Harriet questioned as she followed Jace over to a weapons room just outside the arena. This room was made of wood and contained shelves of different kinds of swords, shields, bows, axes, and various other weaponry. Each one was inside a see-through glass case and labelled with a title and a ranking. These ranks ranged from 'beginner' to 'elite', one of the swords from the 'elite' rank was missing, this was presumably the very sword that Jace held in his hand. The prince opened the case to the 'beginner' bows, and passed Harriet one along with three arrows, before getting the same for himself. These bows were a deep brown in colour with a standard white string, unlike Veratine, they had no engravings and no specialised grip, and the arrows were a lighter brown with deep grey tips as normal.

Once the pair had their bows, Jace took Harriet to a different part of the arena, a section specifically made for archery and target practice. As Harriet looked in front of her, she saw three different targets at varying distances from a white line, Jace stood beside her with his bow in hand. He dropped his arrows onto the ground and picked one up, loaded it into the bow and pulled the string back, he then closed one eye and looked directly to the target. His fingers rested with two either side of the arrow.

"Now, do you see how I'm holding it?"
Jace asked Harriet, glancing at her as he loosened his grip on the string so that it didn't accidentally fire. Harriet looked over and made sure to take mental notes of every part of his stance and holding position. She then looked back up to him and nodded.

"There isn't exactly an art to doing this, you just pull it back and..."
Jace began, before he pulled back the string again and looked back to the target, he then released his fingers from the string, sending the arrow flying through the air and into the white outer ring of the target. After seeing where it landed, Jace chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Told you I wasn't great. But you get the idea, right?"
He asked her.

"Yeah, I think I get it."
Harriet nodded at him as he stepped back and out of her way gesturing for her to give it a shot, literally. Harriet dropped her own arrows on the opposite side to his so that they wouldn't get confused, not like it really mattered. She put two fingers on the top and bottom of the arrow and pulled back the string, just as she had been shown. She released the arrow and sent it soaring at a decent speed, eventually landing it on the outer black ring just below Jace's white one. Jace folded his arms and gave her a smile.

"Hey, that wasn't bad! For a beginner at least"
He joked, knowing he was being a huge hypocrite. For said joke, he received a deserved jab to the arm once Harriet had put the bow down beside her arrows.

"As if you were much better! Mr white shot!"
Harriet commented, then realised what she had said and immediately shut up. Jace just smirked at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Shut up, you know what I meant."
Harriet muttered.

"Yeah. just maybe next time don't say it like that"
Jace chuckled.