#5: Intelligence and Insecurity

"... his gaze was still as limpid as the stream riling at our feet..." (Sherwood 332) Limpid was one of our vocab words when we read Nectar in a Sieve; connection! Yes, one word connects one book from another. Meliara seeks out Flauvic after makes a mysterious motion with his hands when his mother takes Mel into their beautiful library and demands what he meant by it. Mel finds out that Flauvic is an illusionist, or so he claims, as he slyly distracts her from her original reason to seek him out. They have a pleasent talk but when the Duke of Savona and the Marquis of Shevraeth come to escort Mel back to the palace, Flauvic some how dissappears. (Was that just an illusion as well?) Mel recieves another letter from her unknown after she asked him about her most recent encounter with Flauvic's mother. Mel is so insecure and it frusterates me she cannot have the courage to at least try to gain power. Mel writes to her unknown," I expect you're being confused by my proximity to power-my brother being friend to the possible king and my living here in the Residence. But believe me, no one could possibly be more ignorant or less influencial than I," (Sherwood 338). And the fact that Mel is a countess and a revolutionary she should have the most power in the kingdom, save the king. Speaking of king, Shevraeth is on his way. I think he is Mel's unknown. She sends him a ring she wanted that included "leaves, spring, circles-all symbols that complemented the friendship. The gemstone was the best ekirth that Azmus could find, carefully faceted so it glittered like a nightstar, so deep a blue as to seem black, except when the light hit it just so and it would send out brilliant shards of color: gold, blue, crimson, emerald." (373) Nee, Bran's betrothed, says once, "One doesn't lose a self, like a pair of gloves or a pin. We learn and change, or we harden into stone." (381) I just wanted to mention that. Well thought out and intelligent; because it is true.