King of Naught (Strands of Existence: Book 3)

Characters

Of all the characters mentioned in book three, I chose to focus on the following four due to the key roles they play in the story; Isa, Rime, Riestel, and Frazil.

Isa

Isa is a powerful flame consecrator-ess and reincarnation of the Witch Queen, Istrata. While Isa has grown from the timid young woman she was in books one and two, she is still highly inquisitive, passionate, and brave beyond measure. She longs to create, to become more than she currently is and demonstrates great strength in the face of numerous obstacles in her life. She is also a perceptive and empathetic individual who sees into people on a deeper level than most. In addition, she is highly determined when she has a goal in mind and stubbornly refuses to give way in the face of obstacles that block her path. However, she is also wary of other people, never knowing who can and cannot be trusted. Overall, I continued to adore Isa’s character as she is an admirable, resilient, and fully fleshed out character with her own emotions, motivations, goals, and inner turmoil.


Rime

Next, we come to Rime, Isa’s beloved husband. Rime is a caring yet reserved man, who commands authority over the soldiers of Kerth. He is a practical and reasonable man who is empathetic to other’s plights. However, throughout the book, Rime’s character began to change, no doubt due to the dark power he has long hidden. While he was still a kind and practical man, there were times where I worried for Isa, where I felt he wasn’t being quite truthful with her. While Rime continues to be passionate about helping his city and showed remarkable restraint on many occasions around his arrogant father Frazil, I began to distrust his character and couldn’t help but feel like his and Isa’s connection was beginning to fizzle out.


Reistel

Now for my second favourite character, Reistel. Reistel is another powerful consecrator, this time commanding the element of ice, and is also the Witch Queen’s former husband. Reistel was – as ever – a cunning and highly intelligent man who often gets on Isa’s nerves. However, book three delved deeper into his past and began painting a more complex picture of him as an individual. Although Reistel could still be quite cold emotionally, there were more frequent instances of him being selfless and compassionate, doing what he thought would benefit others, even if it cost him what he wanted most in life. In contrast to how I cooled toward Rime, I found myself increasingly warming to Reistel as a character, finding him charming and funny, and feeling great empathy for the hardships he had endured in his long life. Overall, I came to root more for him and his goals than for Rime’s.


Frazil

Finally, we come to Frazil, the final key player of book three. As Rime’s father and the soon to be King of Kerth, I had high expectations of him to deliver a prosperous future for his people. At first, he seems like a deeply caring man, thawing a little toward his son, despite them occasionally butting heads. However, as time progressed, I came to see Frazil as a self-preoccupied person, with more manipulative traits than I had first realized. His selfishness and lack of perceptiveness or practicality led me to dislike him all the more throughout the book.