Ancient Kings (The Young Ancients) Read Online Free PDF Page A

like this, someone would call out his name and then rush toward him. Most of the time it was several people at once. This time no one moved much at all, just standing there, looking at them all as if they were strangers. It was worse than a statement about him though, since anyone coming to the place would probably be a customer, which meant that they should have been greeted, at least in some fashion. This time no one even came through the door of the kitchen to see who was there at all. The little bell had rung and everything.
    There was a new display counter, which was made of fine glass, clear and flat with almost no bubbles in it at all, except in the exact center. It was housing material, but still a pretty fancy thing to have in a little place like Two Bends. Behind it were racks of baked goods, most of them what people would need each day, bread rolls and hard loaves, but about half were a variety of cookies and other sweets. It wasn't a holiday though, so Tor wasn't sure why they'd have that much ready to go.
    It wasn't until a cute looking black haired girl came out that anyone noticed them at all, and she barely looked up from her tray at first, since it was a good bit fancier than most of the things they made, being decorated cross rolls. If she spilled them there probably would have been trouble.
    As soon as she set the tray in the large cooling rack she actually spun on them, her face lighting up as she realized who was there.
    "S'Tor! S'Timon!" Tess ran around the counter and nearly tackled him, running a hand out to pat Tim in the process. Then she called out in her thick accent for everyone else, which got...
    No one.
    "Sorry, everyone is sort of busy. We need to get the product ready for the party later. Are you coming?" She looked at them both hard, and then up at the Prince, who smiled back at her warmly.
    "Party? I didn't get an invitation. What's it for?" He was just making conversation but the girl grimaced and shook her head.
    "Sorry, that was probably my fault. I helped with the invitations. Delivered most of them too. It's for my brother Todd's engagement party? To Countess Thorgood? We're having it here. Alyssa sent down one of the big magical palaces for us to hold it in, but we're used to doing the baking here. It isn't for several hours though."
    "Ah. That might explain it then. She and I used to be engaged ourselves. She might not have slipped my name onto the list. Understandable, given everything, since that might be a little awkward."
    Tess nodded at him and dimpled prettily.
    "That would do it. More to the point, mother and I weren't certain that the Heir would come to Two Bends for something like that, so we sort of didn't actually send you an invitation. That's mainly on me, for being lazy." There was a small bow then and a wink that looked far too old for his eleven year old sister's face. "Well, I can get you all in now, I think. Would you like something to snack on while we wait?"
    There was a polite no, thank you, from Timon and Tor, but the Prince looked at the food in the display case wistfully. Since the others said no, he was supposed to as well, by polite rules, but giants were almost always hungry. He was still growing too. Before Tor could ask for him Terry came out from the back and settled his own tray and then waved.
    "I'll get Ma, she's in the big place now. Or... well, why don't you all come over there? It looks pretty good and all that." There was a bit of relaxed hand waving at the door, and then Tor found himself being pounded on the back in a manly fashion, even if the boy wasn't very old at all. He returned it with a grin, realizing that they'd all grown up a lot while he'd been gone.
    It was still early, just past mid-afternoon, so the boy led them to the new place, which required walking on a focus stone path that had rows of magical lights on either side of it, already turned on, since it would save doing it later, no doubt. They were a clear gold color, like