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Cersei's sobs echoed through the empty room.
There was despair in that sound. Like a she-wolf cornered by hunters, only to find that every member of her pack had already fled.
Her son wanted her dead.
Her family had abandoned her.
And now she was a prisoner, a plaything who couldn't control whether she lived or died.
Lynn stood by the window, wine glass in hand, and listened. He didn't push her. He didn't comfort her. He simply waited. Waited for the tears to run dry. Waited for that proud heart to bottom out completely.
The sobs faded. Then even those went quiet, until only a thin, choked whimper remained.
"Done?"
Cersei didn't look up. She fixed her reddened eyes on a single point on the floor, as if she could burn a hole through the stone.
"You must hate me." Lynn said it almost to himself. "Hate me for destroying everything you had."
Cersei's body gave a small, involuntary shudder. The tell of someone who's just heard their own thoughts spoken aloud.
"But have you ever actually thought about it?" He walked toward her and crouched, bringing his eyes level with hers. "Was it really me who destroyed you?"
"Your son Joffrey went mad the moment he sat on the Iron Throne. He's a wild dog with no leash, biting at everyone, and no one can stop him. Today he tries to kill you over a secret. Tomorrow he'll have the entire small council executed for a look he doesn't like."
The words landed like a blade, opening something Cersei had spent years keeping closed.
"And you thought you could control him?"
Lynn smiled. It wasn't kind.
"Don't fool yourself, Cersei. You gave him everything you had. To him, you're just a woman who knows too much and could threaten his throne. Your value to him is less than Liana whispering a few soft words in his ear."
Cersei's nails drove into her palms. She didn't feel it. Every word Lynn said hurt worse.
"You bet everything on a piece of trash." He stood, moved back to the wine cabinet, and poured himself another glass. "Trash that was always going to burn itself down. So you were always going to lose."
He swirled the glass. The wine climbed the sides in slow, dark red streaks.
"You're a pitiable woman, Cersei."
Her head snapped up.
The green in her eyes wasn't dead anymore. It was fire. Not the fire of hope. The raw, ugly fire of a woman who has been humiliated and refuses to stay down.
"What do you want?!" Her voice came out hoarse, ragged. "You want to watch me fall apart? Want to see how low the great queen has sunk? Fine! You've seen it! Is that enough for you?!"
"No."
Lynn turned to face her. He looked at her the way you look at something that's still bristling even after it's been cornered.
"I'm telling you that you have more than one choice."
Cersei went still.
"What?"
"Is Joffrey really all you have left?"
Her breath caught.
She thought of Tommen, far away in Dorne. Too soft. Too weak. That boy would fold the moment anyone leaned on him.
Then another name surfaced.
Myrcella.
Her daughter. The one she had sent to the North herself. The one who was now this man's woman.
"You're going to use Myrcella to threaten me." It wasn't really a question. Her eyes went guarded.
Lynn laughed.
"Threaten?" He set down his glass and crossed the room slowly, step by step, until the pressure of his presence alone made Cersei pull back. "Cersei. Your thinking is far too small. You're only seeing the danger. You're not seeing the opening."
"Joffrey is a lost cause. Already gone. Sooner or later he will drag the whole kingdom down with him, the Lannisters included. But Myrcella..." His voice shifted. Something in it pulled at you, like an undertow. "Myrcella is different. She's young. She's sharp. And she knows how to listen."
He leaned down close, until his lips were near her ear, and dropped his voice to barely a murmur.
"She will give me a child."
A beat of silence.
"A child with my blood. And the blood of House Lannister."
The words detonated in Cersei's skull.
She went rigid. She stared at him as if she were seeing him for the first time.
This man.
What was he planning?
He wanted Myrcella's child on the Iron Throne.
A king with Lynn's blood and Lannister blood both.
Cersei's heart slammed against her ribs. She wasn't a schemer, not truly, not the way Tywin had been. But she didn't need to be a schemer to understand what Lynn had just laid out. She understood it in an instant, understood its full, staggering weight.
That would mean the Lannister name didn't end here.
It would mean House Lannister would rule the Seven Kingdoms again. Through a different door, by a different road, but rule all the same.
And she, Cersei Lannister, would not be the failed queen mother. Would not be the woman her own son had tried to kill and discard.
She would be the grandmother of the king.
A tremor surged up her spine and burst through the top of her skull.
"You're..." Her voice shook. "You're insane."
She couldn't tell whether what she was feeling was terror or something she had no right to feel.
Lynn straightened. He looked down at her.
"Am I?" He shook his head. "I've never been clearer. Joffrey on the Iron Throne is good for no one. The North needs a stable South. The Lannisters need a future worth having. And I need an heir I can trust." He held her gaze, reading every line of shock and conflict on her face. "Our interests are the same."
Cersei's mouth opened. Nothing came out. Her throat had gone completely dry.
Her mind was running at full speed.
Everything rational in her screamed that this was madness. Treason. The kind of thing that got you killed slowly, in public, as a warning to others.
But something else was screaming louder.
Say yes.
Say yes.
This is the only chance you'll get.
She forced herself to breathe. Arranged her face into something composed. Something that belonged in a negotiation.
"Why would I help you?" she said. "What makes you think I'd betray my own son?"
"Because he actually tried to kill you."
One sentence. It cut through everything she'd built up.
"If I hadn't been there, you'd be a cold corpse by now. And I'm not asking for your help, Cersei." His eyes went sharp as a blade's edge. "I'm giving you a choice. Stay loyal to Joffrey's sinking ship and let him drag you under with him. Or become the grandmother of the next king, and take back everything that should have been yours."
Silence settled over the room like snow.
Cersei lowered her head. Her golden hair fell forward, hiding her face. Her hands closed into fists at her sides.
Joffrey.
Myrcella.
One was the son she had poured half her life into, who had tried to have her throat cut.
The other was the daughter she had barely thought about, who might be the only rope left to grab.
How did you choose between them?
Betray your son. Back a grandchild who carried your enemy's blood. It was absurd. It was obscene.
But.
The grandmother of the king.
That title. That position. It sat in her mind like honey with something dark dissolved into it. Fatal. Irresistible.
The silence stretched.
Then, slowly, Cersei raised her head.
The tears were gone. The despair was gone. Her green eyes were clear, and something behind them had shifted.
"If..." She wet her dry lips. "I help you."
"What do I get?"
➤ Next: Utterly Disillusioned with the Lannisters
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