Soulless

Chapter 3: The Tutor

"Well that was quite the parade," Princess Isla said as she accepted Kade's hand and disembarked from the carriage. She looked around. They were safe within a palace courtyard and the angry crowd was farther than that, beyond the wall and the gate that surrounded the royal palace in the midst of Jescity, Naiara's capital.

"Are you alright, Princess?" Kade asked, looking her over.

"I'm fine," she said, turning and walking toward the palace doors. Kade followed, as he always did. "Not a thread out of place. I don't suppose you could keep that little spectacle from reaching my parents?"

"I won't tell them," Kade promised, and Isla was surprised enough by this that she stopped and looked back at him to see if he was lying. Kade ducked his head. "Dax has already gone to do it for me."

Of course. 

Isla pursed her lips and turned again, marching up the steps to the doors which opened right as she reached them. Her cousin Asher, the duke, was there on the other side to greet her.

"You're back!" he exclaimed, smiling. "How was the parade?"

Isla went right past him, not even smiling at his greeting.

"Was it something I said?" she heard Asher ask Kade, falling into step with him.

"There were some outspoken heathens at the parade," Kade explained, and Isla huffed to make her annoyance audible. 

"Have her parents been told?" Asher asked, his voice lower but still easily heard in the corridor.

No sooner had he said it than a servant came through a door up ahead. Upon seeing them she bowed low and said, "Princess Isla, your parents request your presence in the Vasska Room."

"Tell them I'm coming," Isla said. The servant looked nervous at the annoyance in her voice and scattered back the way she'd come.

Behind her, Asher said quieter still, "Ah."

"If you'll excuse me, cousin, I have to be somewhere."

She glanced over her shoulder without stopping and caught the tail end of Kade and Asher's exchange of looks. 

"I'll be in the library if you need me," Asher said, and he, too, disappeared.

Kade was silent as he caught up to Isla and walked next to her for the rest of the way to the Vasska Room, the smallest and most intimate of the palace state chambers, used mostly for matters concerning the royal family.

There were two guards at the door to the Vasska Room. As they approached, the guards moved to block their path. Isla and Kade stopped and frowned at them. Isla cleared her throat.

"You two must be new. I'm Princess Isla, nice to meet you. Notice the crown?"

The guards exchanged a nervous look, but didn't move.

"My parents are expecting me. Kindly step aside so I may go to them."

She wasn't asking. The guard on the left, who couldn't be any older than Isla herself, was turning red. He shifted his weight in discomfort.

"You may enter, Princess, but not with him."

He nodded at Kade, who was beginning to look as annoyed as Isla did.

"That's ridiculous," Isla said. "Kade is my personal guard and was specifically instructed by my parents to never leave my side. I enter with him."

The guards exchanged another look with each other. The one on the right, also young, shook his head slightly.

"But it's the princess and her guard!" the first one hissed.