The Crimson King

Chapter 5 | The Garden

Hi everyone,

I hope you enjoy this chapter, sorry to keep you in suspense for a little longer but I feel that, (for those of you feeling impatient,) if you read back through some of the chapters, you may find that some clues to your questions have already been revealed ;)

Happy reading,
Love Daisy x

__________________________

Chapter Five | The Garden

*

'Well fed devils
behave better than
famished
saints.'

- D. L. Smith

*

The next morning, Iris woke before sunrise.

Her room was cold – her open window and the temperature drop during the night attributing to the chill.

She rose silently out of bed and padded over to the window, curious as to what the city would look like in the early morning haze. She was half disappointed however – a thick fog had rolled in during the night, and now it lay like a soft blanket over the city, concealing everything that sat below the first floor of the palace.

Iris rested on the window frame, yawning as she peered out at the surreal cloudscape. When it looked like this, she could imagine for a moment what the Air Kingdom Palaces might be like.

Her gaze lingered on the place below the mist, where she knew the glasshouse to be hidden. Her plans from last night had not changed with her night's rest, if anything her curiosity had grown, and now she was certain – that enchanting structure would be the first place she investigated this morning.

She pushed away from the view, rifling through the drawers in her room as she searched for clothes. Her bags had not yet arrived – she would need to ask Arlo about that later – but it seemed as though she would not be left wanting.

The drawers, and indeed the wardrobe, already contained neat sets of clothing in her size, it's shape, colour, and fit, more than familiar to Iris. She held up a pair of trousers that were suspiciously similar to a pair she knew she owned and dismissed the idea of someone having already unpack for her.

Surely it was just coincidence, clothing in the Earth Kingdom did not vary so greatly and Arlo had always brought her clothing for her.

Now that she thought about it, it was not so unreasonable to assume that Arlo may have actually brought her clothing from the Jade City itself. After all, the city was not that far away from Iris's original home and – unless Arlo was keeping more secrets – Iris highly doubted that another city of such size was nearby.

He certainly wouldn't have gone to a human settlement to buy clothing for her – apparently human woman confined themselves to dresses with corsets and heavy skirts. Upon learning this, Iris had wrinkled her nose at the mere thought of the inconvenience. How tiresome, to be lugging such an amount of useless material around all day for the sake of fashion. Humans really were fascinating creatures.

She continued through the drawers, pulling on a pair of pants with renewed gratefulness, as well as a loose shirt. She rummaged through the bottom of the wardrobe to find a pair of soft leather shoes that slipped perfectly on her feet.

Iris was then required to feel the hypocrisy of her earlier words as she noticed that the other clothes in the wardrobe were in fact dresses that far surpassed anything Iris had ever seen before, and she fervently hoped that they were not intended for her.