~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
The blade pressed down.
A thin line of red opened across the wrinkled folds of Pycelle's neck.
He could feel the coldness of the sword. The sting as steel kissed skin.
Joffrey hadn't applied any real force.
He just held it there, staring down with those blood-red eyes at the man who had destroyed everything.
The Small Council Chamber was silent in a way that felt wrong. Unnatural.
Everyone waited.
Waiting for an answer that would decide whether a man lived or died.
"Speak."
Joffrey's voice went suddenly, terribly calm.
"Did Cersei have a hand in it or not?"
"Understand this — tell me the truth, and I will not sentence you to death."
Pycelle's body shook violently.
His eyes drifted, almost against his will, toward Cersei.
Cersei's face had gone white as bone.
She stared at Pycelle. Her eyes were all warning and pleading at once, frantic, desperate. She shook her head over and over, mouthing words without sound.
No. No.
Pycelle read it clearly.
He also read the killing intent in Joffrey's eyes.
Pure. Absolute. No room for negotiation whatsoever.
If he lied, his head would leave his shoulders before he finished the sentence.
If he told the truth...
Was there still a chance to survive?
The instinct to live crushed what little fear of House Lannister he had left.
"She... she knew..."
Pycelle forced the words up from somewhere deep in his throat, wringing them out like the last of his strength.
Those words landed on Cersei like a lightning strike.
Her body swayed. She nearly lost her footing.
The expression on Joffrey's face did not change.
He simply continued.
"Knew what?"
"She... she knew... that His Lordship... planned to move against King Robert..."
Pycelle's words came faster and faster. He wanted to pour everything out, spend every secret he had to buy himself another breath.
"She had no part in the planning... but she knew!"
"She did nothing! She just watched!"
"She wanted King Robert dead — so she could control you! Control the entire kingdom!"
"She complained to me about it more than once! Said the king had to die!"
"So she let it happen! She gave her silent blessing to all of it!"
Pycelle fell quiet.
He closed his eyes and waited for his judgment.
The Small Council Chamber sank back into a silence like death.
Joffrey turned his neck slowly, inch by inch.
His gaze traveled over Pycelle's head and found his mother's face.
Cersei's lips were trembling.
She needed to explain. She needed him to understand.
"Joffrey... I... it isn't what he said..."
Joffrey smiled.
It was a smile worse to look at than tears.
His eyes welled up again, beyond his control. Drop after drop, they fell onto Pycelle's white hair.
His mother. His mother had betrayed him too.
So it was true. He really was the loneliest person in the world.
"Haha..."
"Hahahahahaha!"
Joffrey threw his head back and laughed. The sound tore through the chamber , raw and hollow, soaked through with sorrow and despair.
He raised the sword high.
Pycelle felt the rush of air above his head. His eyes flew open in terror.
He watched the gleaming blade fill his vision, growing larger and larger.
But he wasn't supposed to be sentenced to death. The king had said ,
Thwick.
The sword came down.
Not across his neck.
Into his shoulder. Deep, savage, all the way through.
"AHHH —!"
Pycelle's scream tore out of him. The agony convulsed his entire body.
"Enjoy it, Pycelle." Joffrey stood over him, tears still running down his blood-splattered face. "I won't sentence you to death. But I will kill you with my own hands."
He paused.
"Though letting you go that quickly would be far too easy."
He ripped the sword free. A bright arc of blood followed it.
He raised it again and drove it into the other shoulder.
Thwick.
"AHHHHH ,!"
"I want you to suffer every moment of it!"
The screams filled the chamber. Every noble felt their scalp crawl.
"This one is for my father!"
Joffrey's voice was a raw, ragged roar. He yanked the blade out and plunged it into Pycelle's thigh.
"This one is for me!"
He had gone somewhere beyond reason. Strike after strike, over and over, blade finding flesh again and again.
He avoided every vital spot.
He wanted this old man to die slowly. To feel every second of it.
Blood pooled fast beneath Pycelle, spreading dark and wide across the stone floor. The heavy copper smell of it filled the chamber.
Pycelle's screams climbed high, then cracked, then faded. What was left was only broken, intermittent moaning.
Cersei had collapsed to the floor. Her face drained of all color, she watched her son butcher Pycelle like a man possessed.
She felt as though she was looking at a stranger.
Barristan Selmy's hand trembled around his sword hilt.
He wanted to step forward. He couldn't bring himself to move.
This was the king's family matter.
This was the king's revenge.
Varys stood with his hands tucked in his sleeves. Beneath the silk, his fingers trembled , not with fear.
With excitement.
What a magnificent sight.
The Lannister lion was tearing its own claws apart with its bare hands.
He was one step closer to everything he wanted.
Then, finally.
Pycelle stopped moving.
His body lay like a ruined sack of blood, limbs twisted into angles that didn't belong to the living.
Joffrey stood over the corpse, chest heaving. Blood , warm, dark, still fresh , covered his face and hands and the front of his golden ceremonial robes, which had turned a strange, sickly shade of red-gold.
He let the sword fall from his fingers.
Clang.
He turned. Those hollow eyes swept slowly across every face in the room.
The nobles who had commanded armies and bent kings to their will all looked down at the floor. Not one of them met his gaze.
"Get out."
His voice was ruined. A hoarse rasp.
"All of you. Get out."
No one hesitated.
Several nobles practically stumbled over each other scrambling for the door, each one terrified that being a half-step too slow would make them the next Pycelle.
Varys dipped a shallow bow toward Lin En, then slipped out without a sound.
Barristan Selmy looked once at the body on the floor, once at Joffrey. He let out a slow breath, then led the Kingsguard out of the chamber.
The door closed.
Three people remained.
Lin En. Joffrey. And Cersei, still crumpled on the ground.
And one corpse that hadn't finished cooling.
Joffrey walked to a nearby chair and sat down. He picked up a relatively clean corner of the tablecloth and began wiping the blood from his hands.
Careful. Methodical. Taking his time.
Cersei watched him. She wanted to run.
But her legs wouldn't answer. They felt like they'd been filled with iron. The silence pressed down on her like something physical, crushing the breath from her chest.
When Joffrey finished, he balled up the blood-soaked cloth and dropped it onto Pycelle's ruined face.
Then he stood, and walked toward her. One step at a time.
Cersei scrambled backward across the floor until her back hit the wall and there was nowhere left to go.
"Joffrey..." Her voice broke. "My son..."
Joffrey crouched down in front of her.
He looked at her. Just looked. At the woman who had given him life and, with those same hands, taken everything from him.
There was no rage left in his eyes. No madness. Not even hatred.
Only a stillness so cold it made the skin crawl.
A long moment passed.
Then he spoke.
"Why?"
Those blue eyes , eyes that had once held something alive in them , were empty now. Completely empty.
"Why did you kill him?"
A beat of silence.
"He was my father."
➤ Next: Matricide
— .—— .—— .—— .—— .——
[FULL STORY ACCESS]
📖 Read ahead up to [Chapter 470]
✨ Support the author: https://p a t r e o n（.）com/DarkGolds