Genevieve listened to his words.  She would remember them later.  But for now her understanding of them showed the contrast between them, between their two houses, and between their situations.  She crouched on the floor, seeing nothing but the marble beneath her.  Her body burned in a dozen places, in weariness, in anticipation, in pain.  The soft touch of the flogger brushed her here, there, back and forth, always teasing, whispering promises of things to come, like a lover who strokes his lover's skin while he threatens worse.  All of this while Gravon himself commanded the room, and her, from above.  She heard his whispers of danger, but there was nothing she could do now.  His house's call was to command, hers to submit.  She did not know what it was like to stand in his place.  But in her place it was an immersion, like slipping into dark water, burning hot or stabbing cold, it became your life at that moment, the world condensed to your body and the inch of space surrounding it.<br/><br/>So it was for her now.  She was barely aware of the crowd and their snapping.  She felt no shame or awkwardness in being bared for them, and compared to the man who commanded her body, they were nothing.  Foolish even in their beliefs, their feigned understanding of what they watched.  It was only the two of them who knew.<br/><br/>The kiss of the flogger was gone and now her whole body burned in chill emptiness, the skin untouched now by anything but air.  She did not move, her body poised just as he had arranged it, though her arms burnt behind her.  Inside she clenched, ready for whatever was next, her whole body bent into the pose of submission.  She had given herself to him, her body's most vulnerable spots exposed for him, her sight gone, no view of what would come.  The goddess flowed through her as she perfectly embodied House Valerian in her submission, her forceful yielding.