Kingdom Chronicles Collection - Books 1-3

Chapter 4

The sun was streaming through his window, but his cell phone alarm wasn"t set to go off for another ten minutes. He hadn"t felt like he slept at all and awoke with such a start that he was full of energy.

“Damn, what was that all about?” Pen asked as he sat up.

“Just a bad dream is all, shake it off and get ready for a rough day at work. One more day is all you need to do, you can do it again,” Pen encouraged himself to get to work, stood up and faced the most hated of all holidays.

It was Blade Day again.

The day wore on quickly as it always did when you were anywhere else but working. Soon it was time to go in and face reality. He was tough, he could handle it and he knew it, as long as Shane showed up there wouldn"t be a problem for anyone.

He drove to the Castle. Now it was all decorated in the traditional gold and silver lights of the holiday. It made him cringe a little bit. Thankfully enough, the castle only decorated for the day of the event, not a month before like most of the local stores in Antacia did.

He ignored it as he parked in his spot and did what he always did. Shane was already in the room getting stuff ready, but he usually was there before Pen was.

“Hey man, are you ready for one hell of a night?” Shane asked him.

“You bet I"ve done this a couple times before, remember,” Pen replied to him.

Thirty minutes later the rush began, the place only had so many plates and forks to go around and these two were responsible for every single one got recycled back into the kitchen so they could be used as best as they could. For hours the rush continued with no signs of stopping. Then at seven pm, the rush started to slow down.

“The ritual must have started, lets catch up while we can,” Shane suggested. “I heard that, let"s do it,” Pen replied and the two of them started to break down the mountain of dishes from the kitchen and the party alike.

In the middle of doing this, there was a loud knock at the dish room door. This was unusual to say the least. Shane was closer so he opened the door.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Yes, is there a Pen Kenders in the room, King Lom requests his presence immediately,” a man dressed in a very expensive suit said to him.

“Pen buddy, you sent a dirty plate out and the King got it, you"re going to be, for the lack of a better term, terminated,” Shane said and ran his thumb across his own neck to Pen as he dropped the plate back into the soapy water in shock.

“But I"m a mess I can"t go out there like this,” Pen tried to find an excuse, but the man at the door didn"t buy it for a second. “Please, sir, come with me. It"s very important,” he insisted again.

Pen shook the soap off his hands and despite being soaked walked to the door.

“Alright, lead the way,” Pen said and the man began walking down the hall, Pen"s legs were stiff from not moving for so long that he was having trouble keeping up with the guy, every step felt like fire moving up his legs at this pace.

Pen was scared, he had no idea what was coming next but knew that it couldn"t be good for whatever reason to be summoned by the King on such a big day.

The direction they were going. Pen knew it led right to the main hall of the castle, he couldn"t imagine any reason for him being summoned like this but when the King called your name saying no was always a bad decision.