The Grand Hall had been transformed overnight into something Vane barely recognized. Rows of white chairs stretched across the floor where training mats usually sat. Banners hung from the high rafters, one for each kingdom with a graduating student that year, gold thread catching the morning light pouring through the tall windows. Somewhere a string quartet was tuning, the sound thin and delicate against the low murmur of a few hundred families finding their seats.
Vane sat with Ashe on one side and Valerica on the other, Isole just beyond her, Mara squeezed in at the end of the row with her hands folded neatly in her lap like she'd been taught exactly how to sit for occasions like this. Isaac was somewhere near the front with his own family, though he'd promised to find them after.
The graduates were seated separately, off to the side in their formal robes, rows of them, and it took Vane a moment to find her among all that identical white and gold.
