SELENE
FEW DAYS LATER
The Bond Trial ceremony was the kind of event the academy took very seriously, every student was required to attend in formal wear. The great hall had been transformed overnight into something that looked like it belonged in a different century entirely.
Long silver banners hung from the ceiling beams, rows of white chairs faced a raised stone platform at the far end of the room. Candles burned in tall iron holders along both walls, throwing warm, flickering light across everything, the whole room smelled like cedar and something older underneath it, something that felt deliberately ceremonial.
I stood near the entrance in a dark green dress that hit just below my knee and looked at all of it with the specific feeling of someone who already knows a storm is comin
