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"Your Majesty."
Liana's voice came from behind him as she draped a warm cloak over Joffrey's shoulders.
"It's late. The wind is strong."
Joffrey turned and pulled her into his arms, resting his chin on the top of her head.
"Tell me. Did I do the right thing?"
"You are always right, my King." Liana's voice was so soft it could melt.
"Yes." Joffrey murmured. "I am always right."
But there was a thorn buried in his chest that never stopped digging.
That secret.
He was not Robert's son.
Tywin knew. Jaime knew. Cersei knew.
And now Lynn knew too.
Lynn had chosen to keep quiet , had even let his mother trade her body for his silence. But that changed nothing. It was a sword hanging over Joffrey's head, and one day, without warning, it would fall.
No.
Absolutely not.
The fewer people who knew, the better.
Joffrey's eyes went cold.
Who else was there?
His two uncles , Stannis and Renly , had already convinced themselves they were the rightful kings. The moment either of them found proof, the throne was as good as gone.
And then there was...
A small shape surfaced in Joffrey's mind.
Tommen.
His weak, sniveling little brother who spent his days crying over kittens.
A threat. An actual threat.
If the truth came out, Tommen became the backup king , the perfect puppet for every traitor who wanted a young, pliable boy on the throne.
No.
The kingdom could only have one king. The Baratheon name could only have one heir.
Me.
Joffrey Baratheon.
A terrible thought took root in his chest and began to grow.
"Liana."
"I'm here, Your Majesty."
"Tell me , if a family has too many heirs, isn't that a problem?"
Liana's body went slightly still. She tilted her head up and looked at him. His eyes were glittering with something dangerous.
"In a pride of lions," she said quietly, "there is only ever one king."
"Ha!" Joffrey released her and started pacing the room. "Well said! In a pride of lions, there is only ever one king!"
He stopped.
His eyes hardened into something absolute.
"Guards!"
A guard stepped in quickly and dropped to one knee.
"Your Majesty!"
Joffrey walked to him, crouched down, and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Mare. How long have you served me?"
"Your Majesty , five years, since you were still a prince." The guard's voice trembled with the weight of being noticed.
"Good."
Joffrey leaned close to his ear and spoke word by word, his voice low and deliberate.
"My brother Tommen hasn't been feeling well lately."
"I've heard he likes to sleep with the blanket pulled over his head."
"Children don't know any better. Sleeping like that can so easily lead to..." A pause. "...suffocation."
"Do you understand what I'm saying?"
The guard's entire body shook.
He looked up in horror at Joffrey's smiling face.
That smile was worse than any devil's.
"I... I..."
"Hmm?" Joffrey's voice dropped to ice.
"I understand! Your Majesty , I understand!" Mare nodded frantically, pale as a sheet.
"Good."
Joffrey stood, the full weight of royal bearing settling back onto him.
"Go."
"And remember , it needs to look like an accident."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The guard scrambled out of the room.
Liana stood with her head bowed, as if she had heard nothing at all.
---
Early the next morning.
A piercing scream tore through the pre-dawn silence of the Red Keep.
"Something terrible has happened! Prince Tommen — Prince Tommen, he's — he's not breathing!"
The news hit the castle like a storm front. Within minutes, it had swept through every corridor and chamber.
Tower of the Hand.
Cersei had only just fallen into an exhausted sleep , the kind that follows Lynn's particular brand of "instruction." She hadn't even had time to dream before urgent fists hammered against the door.
"Your Grace! Your Grace! Something's happened!"
She sat up sharply. Grabbed a silk robe, threw it over her shoulders, crossed the room in three strides, and wrenched the door open.
Her personal maid stood in the doorway, face streaked with tears, eyes wide with terror.
"What happened?!" A cold premonition clenched in Cersei's gut.
"Prince Tommen , he , he passed away in his sleep last night!"
Boom.
It was as if a hammer had driven straight through her skull.
Tommen.
Her Tommen.
Her sweet, gentle boy.
Dead?
"You..." She couldn't form the words. "What did you say?"
She seized the maid by the shoulders, fingernails biting into flesh.
"Say it again."
"Your Grace — it's true — when they found him, his body was already cold..."
Those words were a final verdict. They shattered everything.
"Ah, !"
The sound that came out of Cersei's throat didn't belong to a human being.
Her vision went black. She fell straight backward.
Lynn stepped out of the room and caught her.
He held the unconscious woman, her face soaked in tears, and looked at her without a single ripple of emotion crossing his face.
Everything was going exactly according to plan.
He carried her to the bed and laid her down gently. Then he walked to the door and gave a calm order to the maids waiting in the corridor.
"Go and summon King Joffrey."
"Yes, my lord."
---
Joffrey didn't take long.
He arrived wearing an expression of perfectly calibrated grief.
"Lord Lynn." He entered the room, looked at Cersei lying motionless on the bed, and let a flicker of something pained move across his face. "Mother is... too heartbroken."
"Mm." Lynn nodded. "Your brother's death saddens me as well. My condolences, Your Majesty."
"Thank you, my lord."
Joffrey let the words drip with false sincerity.
"That said , Tommen's death strikes me as suspicious. I believe someone murdered him deliberately."
"Is that so?" Lynn looked at him.
"I will get to the bottom of this." Joffrey's face arranged itself into righteous fury. "I swear it. Tommen will have justice."
Lynn studied that face , every inch of it performing "justice" and "grief" and "brotherly love" , and felt a quiet, private amusement.
The little madman had his routine down cold.
Too bad the performance was absolutely terrible.
"I'm certain you'll find the truth," Lynn said evenly, "and see Tommen properly avenged."
Joffrey nodded with great conviction. He glanced once more at the unconscious Cersei, and something complicated moved through his eyes.
"I'll leave Mother in your care, Lord Lynn. She's emotionally fragile right now. She needs rest."
"She'll be well cared for here." Lynn kept it brief.
Standing in front of this man, Joffrey felt it again , that crawling sense that every small thought he harbored was already known, already seen through, laid out on a table for quiet inspection. He hated it. The feeling made his skin itch.
"Then I'll take my leave."
He manufactured a reason to go and left the Tower of the Hand at a brisk pace.
He wanted to get back to his chambers. To sit with the pleasure of what he'd done , the knowledge that his stupid little brother was gone. This was something else. Something richer than tormenting small animals ever managed to be.
Lynn waited until Joffrey's footsteps faded completely at the end of the corridor.
Then he closed the door.
The room held only him, and the woman lying unconscious on the bed.
He didn't wake her. He pulled the chair close to the bedside and sat, watching her tear-streaked face in silence.
He needed this pain , this despair , to steep a little longer in her heart.
A person only learns to hold onto their last light when they've truly lost everything else.
---
Time passed.
Cersei's long lashes trembled. Her eyes opened slowly.
Empty. Numb. Lifeless as still water.
Her mind was blank. Several seconds crawled by before the memory crashed back in.
Tommen.
Her Tommen was dead.
Tears slid from the corners of her eyes without restraint, breaking and falling like a string of pearls snapped loose.
First Joffrey had tried to have her killed. And now her kind, beautiful boy was gone.
No.
This was Joffrey.
It had to be him.
That madman. That animal. He had decided his own younger brother was a threat to his throne and hadn't hesitated for a single moment.
Hatred rose from somewhere so deep inside her it felt bottomless , a tide that threatened to drown everything she was.
She wanted blood.
She wanted to kill that little bastard with her own hands.
But how? With what? She was a prisoner. A plaything. A woman who couldn't even determine what happened to herself from one hour to the next.
Then Lynn's voice broke the silence.
"You want to kill Joffrey right now, don't you?"
Cersei's whole body jerked. She turned her head sharply, fixing those red-rimmed eyes on him.
"Was it him?!" Her voice was raw. "He did this , didn't he? He would do this. You know he would!"
Lynn didn't answer the question. He only said:
"You've seen what Joffrey is capable of."
"I..." Cersei opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
What was left to say? What was left to do? She had nothing. No power, no allies, no leverage. She had no choices remaining.
Lynn looked at her , at the ruin written across every line of her face , and slowly rose from the chair. He walked to the bedside and leaned down until he was looking directly into her eyes.
"What if I told you Tommen isn't dead?"
The words detonated in her skull.
Cersei went absolutely still.
She stared at him. Her lips moved but no sound followed. Just disbelief, naked and total.
"You..." She had to work to find her voice. "What did you just say?"
"Your son Tommen is alive."
Lynn's tone didn't change. Steady. Unhurried. Certain.
"The one who died in the Red Keep last night was a corpse wearing a human-face mask. I made the switch in advance."
Boom.
Cersei's mind went completely white.
Tommen wasn't dead.
He was alive.
Lynn had saved him.
The joy hit her like a physical force , so immense it obliterated every shred of despair in a single instant. She threw herself upright from the bed and grabbed Lynn's arm with both hands, her green eyes blazing with a light that had never been there before.
"Is it true? You're not lying to me?!"
"Why would I lie to you?"
Cersei looked at his calm eyes. At that face that held no trace of humor or manipulation.
She believed him.
"Where is he?" Her voice was shaking. "Where is he right now?"
"Somewhere safe."
Lynn said it plainly.
"As long as Joffrey sits on the throne, Tommen cannot surface."
Cersei understood. All of it, in a rush. Lynn hadn't just saved her son , he had kept her last reason to fight alive. Preserved her one remaining hope.
While Joffrey, her own flesh and blood, had been scheming to murder his little brother.
There was no comparison. None.
Thud.
Cersei rolled off the bed and hit her knees heavily on the floor in front of him.
She didn't have words for what she felt. Gratitude was too small , absurdly, pathetically small. This man had given her son a second life.
"Master..."
She looked up. Her face was wet with tears.
"From this day forward, I — Cersei Lannister — everything I am belongs to you." Her voice was steady despite the tears. "My body. My soul. My loyalty. Speak a word, any word , even if you commanded me to die , I would not breathe a single complaint."
She knew what this moment meant. Her life was bound to this man now, completely and without condition.
Joffrey. That animal. She would never waste another shred of herself on any illusion about him.
Lynn looked at the woman kneeling at his feet and let a quiet smile settle on his face.
He reached down and lifted her chin gently with two fingers.
"Good."
"Don't forget what you just said."
He drew her up from the floor and pressed her back onto the bed. His hand found the edge of her silk nightgown and began to slide, slow and deliberate.
Cersei shivered. She closed her eyes and met him without resistance , without hesitation.
This was her loyalty, made tangible.
The only way she knew to repay him.
The air in the room thickened and grew warm.
---
Eventually, Lynn released her.
Cersei lay against his chest, breathing hard, a flush spread across her skin.
"Master," she said, when she'd found her voice again. "What do I do next?"
She was already restless with it , the need to move, to act, to strike back at Joffrey with something that would actually hurt.
Lynn ran his fingers through her golden hair.
"Go back to him. Tell him you support everything he decides."
"Including moving against his two uncles , Stannis and Renly."
"Tell him you believe it was Stannis and Renly who ordered Tommen's death, and that Joffrey is their next target."
"Joffrey has wanted to go after Stannis and Renly for years. The only thing that stopped him was you and Tywin holding the leash. That leash is gone now."
"I want you to fan that rage. Give him a reason to send Renly and Stannis against Tywin under the banner of loyalty to their king , or better yet, let them tear each other apart in a civil war within House Baratheon."
"Only when the waters are muddied enough will the child Myrcella carries one day be able to claim the title of prince or princess."
"Do you understand me, Cersei?"
Her eyes sharpened. Lit up.
"I know exactly what to do."
Something settled in her expression , not rage anymore. Resolution. Cold, deliberate, merciless resolve.
She sat up from his embrace and straightened her robe. By the time she was on her feet, the Queen Mother had returned. Noble. Composed. Vicious in the particular way only a Lannister could be.
Only her heart was different now. Branded with a different name.
She walked to the door and pulled it open. At the threshold, she looked back once.
"Master. Wait for my good news."
Then she was gone, without a backward glance.
Lynn watched her go. He reached for the cup of wine on the table and drained it in one long swallow.
Joffrey. You're going to love every bit of this.
➤ Next: An Unexpected Complication
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