A Hundred Eyes

The dress arrived on the fourteenth morning.

Black. Simple. High collar that sat over the real collar, hiding it. The fabric was heavy and smooth and when Wren put it on it felt like being claimed in cloth.

The Dissonance stood in the doorway and watched. Her grey eyes tracked the dress the way they tracked resonance, and Wren felt the looking on her skin, felt it travel, felt the places the looking touched heat. The corner of her mouth moved, not a smile, the ghost of one.

Tonight. The Concord convenes. You will attend.

As what?

Mine.

The word went through her. Through the collar, through the ribs, through the place where the wanting and the unnamed thing lived together.

The Dissonance crossed the room and took Wren's chin in her hand. Her thumb traced Wren's lower lip, slow, feather-light, and Wren's lips parted and the parting was the body answering.

You will not speak unless spoken to. You will not look up unless I tell you. You will kneel when I tell you and rise when I tell you. You will be looked at. By everyone. And you will let them look.

Before they left the Dissonance put the stone inside her. Standing in the hallway, the dress on, the Dissonance's hand up between her thighs, and the stone slid inside and settled deep. Then the Dissonance's hand went to Wren's hair and pulled it back and her mouth was on Wren's neck, teeth on the pulse point, and the bite and the stone and the collar all hummed together.

You will not come until I say. Not there. Not in front of them. You will hold it.

Yes.

They walked. The hidden city was closer to the surface after dark, towers of sound bleeding through stone, ribbons of light in the gutters. The stone hummed with every step and the hum kept her wet and the wetness was a secret under the dress and the secret was the Dissonance's.

The concert hall appeared between two buildings. The sound hit Wren first. Hundreds of mages, each carrying their own frequency, and the combined sound was a chord so vast she felt it in her molars, her fingertips, the base of her spine. The collar strained. The stone hummed.

The hall was beautiful. High ceilings, dark wood, alive with sustained notes. Mages stood in clusters, talking in voices that carried wrong. They turned when the Dissonance entered.

Every head. Every pair of too-bright eyes. The room went quiet the way rooms go quiet around the Dissonance, and Wren felt the eyes find her and the finding was a weight on her skin, a hundred points of heat.

The old wound opened. What will they think of me. The bedsit thought, the shrinking thought. She could feel each eye individually, a fingertip pressing into her, and her body responded, a full flush from collar to chest to stomach, her pulse in her throat and her wrists and the backs of her knees. Her shoulders wanted to hunch. Her eyes wanted the floor.

The stone pulsed. One long vibration. The Dissonance's timing was perfect, was cruel, was the pulse arriving at the exact moment the fear peaked, and the fear and the arousal became the same frequency and Wren could not separate them. Her body swelled under the dress. Her nipples hardened against the fabric. A hundred mages were looking at her and none of them knew.

Chin up, the Dissonance said. Low. At her ear. Private.

Wren's chin came up. Not because the Dissonance commanded it. Because the fearlessness was in her bones now. It fit. She had grown into it on her knees and in the afternoons with the flowers and in the nights with her hand on the Dissonance's shoulder.

The Dissonance moved through the hall and Wren moved with her. The mages parted the way water parts for a stone. They reached the centre.

Kneel, the Dissonance said.

Wren knelt. The floor was wood and hummed under her knees. The dress pooled around her. The stone shifted with the kneeling and the shifting changed the vibration, brighter, more focused, and the focus sat in the swollen place. The hall was full of mages and every one of them was looking at her and the looking was a weight on her shoulders, her back, the crown of her head.

The Dissonance's hand rested on Wren's head. The fingertips pressed, a fraction, listening. What she heard was the stillness and the heat and the not-ashamed.

The stone pulsed. On. Off. On. The rhythm the Dissonance used when she touched her. Each pulse a stroke. Each silence a withdrawal. Wren's body followed the rhythm, building and receding, and the building was toward the edge and the edge was not hers.

A mage approached. Older, male, his resonance a low controlled hum. He spoke to the Dissonance and not to Wren, deliberate, reducing her to furniture. Wren felt the reduction and the body's response was anger, the teeth, and the teeth were hers. She held them behind closed lips.

The Dissonance's hand tightened on her head. I hear you. I know. Stay. Wren stayed.

The stone went to a constant hum. No pulses. No rhythm. Just a sustained vibration inside her, against the walls, against the nerve endings. Wren's body was on the edge. She was swollen and the collar hummed and the stone hummed and the three were one and the one was building and the building was beyond her control.

She came. Silently. Kneeling. The orgasm moved through her in waves, her body clenching around the stone, her thighs shaking, her breath catching once and then controlled, held. No sound. No movement anyone could see. The only sign was a fractional tightening of the Dissonance's hand on her head, feeling it through the bond, and the tightening was the only acknowledgment.

No one saw. A hundred mages in a hall and no one saw the resonant come on her knees with a stone inside her and the Dissonance's hand on her head. The secrecy was the intimacy, was the body for the Dissonance and the status for the room.

The hall moved on. The Dissonance stood and Wren knelt and the stone hummed low, not stopping, keeping her desperate, and the desperation was the Dissonance's.

When the Concord ended the Dissonance looked down at her, and the looking was different from any looking before. The grey eyes were close and the crack was in them, wide, and behind the crack was gladness. Glad that Wren had not broken. Glad and frightened by how glad.

Stand, the Dissonance said. Low. Private.

Wren stood. Her legs were unsteady. The Dissonance's hand went to the small of her back and the touch was warm and proprietary and Wren felt it travel her spine.

They walked out. The night air hit her and the flush cooled and the cooling was a loss. The townhouse appeared and the door closed and the soundproofing sealed and the world stopped.

The Dissonance pushed her against the hallway wall. Not gently. Hands on her hips, mouth on her mouth, and the kiss was the thing the Dissonance had been holding back through the entire gathering. Wren felt the holding-back end in the pressure of the lips and the grip of the hands and the wrong note filling the hallway.

A sound and the dress dissolved. Another sound and Wren's wrists were bonded above her head, sound-bonds holding her against the wall. The clamps formed on her nipples, sustained notes that gripped and tightened, and the ache traveled downward and met the stone still humming inside her.

The Dissonance's hand went between Wren's legs. Three fingers, deep, and the fullness was a note that went through the body. Her mouth went to Wren's breast, the teeth on the nipple, and the bite was ache and the ache was the circuit and Wren's back arched off the wall.

The rhythm built. The fingers thrusting, the mouth working, the stone shifting. The Dissonance's other hand went to Wren's throat, over the collar, and pressed. Not choking. Holding. The pulse under the palm, the hum under the fingers, and the holding was the tenderness and the tenderness was the edge.

Come, the Dissonance said against her mouth.

Wren came. The orgasm was a sound and a silence, the resonance pushing through the collar, and the Dissonance made a sound against her mouth, raw, stripped, nothing left of the sharp edge in it, and the sound was the fall.

The bonds released. The stone remained. Wren slumped against the wall and the Dissonance caught her and the catching was the holding.

Upstairs, the Dissonance said against her mouth. Now.