Outside the window of the Tower of the Hand, the sky was already bleeding into the pale gray of dawn.
Cersei woke up to a wave of deep, aching soreness.
She opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, and the man standing by the window with his back to her, already fully dressed.
Lynn.
Everything from last night violently flooded her mind.
The humiliating positions, the absolute, unhinged madness she had never experienced before—it made her feel like a thoroughly used, broken ragdoll.
And then there were the eyes outside the window, dead-locked on her absolute debauchery.
She thought she would be consumed by hatred.
But right now, her heart was nothing but a barren, numb wasteland.
This man held absolutely everything she had in the palm of his hand—her life, and the future of her daughter, Myrcella.
What was the goddamn point of hating him?
"You're awake?"
Lynn didn't turn around. He just picked up his wine goblet from the table and took a slow sip.
"Get dressed. Head back to the Red Keep."
Cersei's body twitched. She pushed herself up, picked up her torn, ruined gown from the floorboards, and silently pulled it over her naked body.
She knew this was Lynn's version of mercy.
He had spared her life, and that was the absolute best outcome she could ever hope for.
Lynn turned around, looking at the woman who had just managed to piece her regal Queen Mother facade back together. But the vibrant fire in her emerald eyes was completely, permanently extinguished.
"Remember exactly who you belong to now."
Lynn's voice was flat and absolute.
Cersei's heart seized in her chest.
She bowed her head, answering in a whisper barely audible over the morning breeze.
"Yes, Master."
...
When Cersei finally stepped foot back inside the Red Keep, every single servant and guard who saw her shot her highly loaded, complicated looks.
Pity, absolute disgust, and naked schadenfreude.
The once arrogant, untouchable Queen Mother had been dragged off by the newly appointed Hand of the King for the entire night, and was now being tossed back.
Everyone knew exactly what that meant.
She had officially become Lord Lynn's personal plaything.
A private sex slave.
Cersei treated the stares like they didn't exist.
She assumed she was going to be escorted to the isolated, rotting tower next to the Great Sept of Baelor, just like Joffrey had decreed.
But the guards leading the way marched her straight toward her former royal chambers.
The most extravagant, massive palace inside the Red Keep.
Cersei froze in her tracks, completely failing to process what was happening.
She pushed the heavy doors open.
And she saw Joffrey.
Her son, the King of the Seven Kingdoms, was sitting dead center in the main seat. He was wearing a bizarre, almost gentle smile she had never seen on his face before.
"Mother. You're back."
Cersei's heart rocketed into her throat.
Following Lynn's exact instructions, she bowed her head in absolute, pathetic submission.
"My King."
Joffrey stood up from his chair, slowly closed the distance, and circled her like a merchant inspecting a piece of livestock.
"I've thought it over very carefully."
"You are, after all, my mother, the Queen Mother of the Seven Kingdoms. How could I ever force you to live in such an isolated, pathetic place?"
"Starting today, you will continue to live right here."
"Everything you owned in the past—your servants, your wardrobe, your jewels—it all remains exactly as it was."
Joffrey's words completely short-circuited Cersei's brain.
What the hell was he talking about?
Didn't he want her dead just yesterday?
Did Lyanna actually talk him down? Or did Lynn say something to him?
Right as her mind was racing with chaotic theories.
Joffrey leaned in, dropping his mouth right next to her ear.
His voice sank into a dark, heavy whisper.
"Last night... I saw you."
"You did an exceptional job, Mother."
Joffrey's handsome face warped into a sick, twisted, psychotic smile.
"Absolutely flawless."
He straightened up, looking at his mother's pale, deeply humiliated face with a gaze full of immense, sickening approval.
"Lord Lynn is the single most vital asset in the entire realm. He has absolute power, but he also possesses bottomless ambition."
"A terrifying dragon like him needs a few heavy chains to keep him tethered."
"And you, my dearest mother, are the unbreakable iron chain I have prepared specifically for him."
Joffrey reached out and gently took Cersei's freezing hand in his.
"Therefore, Mother, I need you to continue serving him."
"Make sure he is completely satisfied. Keep him incredibly happy. Make it so he absolutely cannot live without your body."
"This is for the ultimate stability of the realm. It's for me. It's so your son can permanently secure his grip on the Iron Throne."
"Do you understand?"
Cersei stood completely paralyzed on the spot.
She felt every single drop of blood in her veins instantly turn to ice.
She finally understood.
She understood absolutely everything.
Her son wasn't doing this out of guilt, and he damn sure wasn't doing it out of mercy.
He was implicitly authorizing—no, actively encouraging—her to be Lynn's personal whore.
He was treating his own mother like a cheap, high-end hooker used to buy a warlord's loyalty!
A literal flesh-tool to cement his rule!
All that bullshit she had convinced herself of last night—that he was doing this out of some grand, royal necessity—was absolute garbage!
He was just manufacturing a high-and-mighty excuse to justify his own psychotic, cold-blooded selfishness!
A massive, unprecedented wave of pure, physical nausea violently surged from the very bottom of Cersei's soul.
She stared at the incredibly familiar, yet utterly alien face standing right in front of her.
She stared into those eyes that carried the exact same Lannister blood as her own.
In that exact split second, the absolute last lingering shred of maternal love in her heart was completely, permanently incinerated.
Replaced entirely by a bottomless, limitless ocean of pure, toxic hatred.
She wanted nothing more than to pull a dagger right now and drive it straight through this little bastard's heart!
Butcher him with her own two hands!
But she couldn't.
She violently suffocated every single emotion screaming inside her, forcing a highly compliant, sickeningly sweet smile onto her face.
She dropped straight to her knees once again.
"I understand, my King."
Her voice degraded itself completely into the dirt.
"For you, and for House Lannister, I am willing to sacrifice absolutely everything."
"Haha, excellent! That is my wonderful mother!"
Joffrey threw his head back and laughed in absolute, arrogant satisfaction.
He felt like he had completely and flawlessly mastered this woman. Mastered absolutely everything.
Over the next few days.
The entire Red Keep plunged into an incredibly bizarre, suffocating atmosphere.
The newly appointed Hand of the King, Lord Lynn, began openly and brazenly entering and exiting the Queen Mother's royal chambers.
Sometimes in broad daylight. Sometimes in the dead of night.
He never bothered to hide it from a single soul.
And the muffled, highly suppressed, yet agonizing moans constantly bleeding out from the Queen Mother's chambers officially became a mandatory fixture of the Red Keep's nightlife.
Night watchmen deliberately avoided patrolling that specific corridor.
Passing handmaidens would violently flush red, bury their faces in their chests, and practically sprint past the heavy doors.
Absolutely everyone knew exactly what was happening in there.
Joffrey, of course, knew better than anyone.
He frequently stood completely alone on the balcony of his own bedchamber, staring off into the distance directly at his mother's palace, quietly listening to the filthy sounds that sent his blood boiling with adrenaline.
His face would warp into an incredibly sick, twisted grimace.
A chaotic cocktail of raw fury, burning humiliation, and blinding jealousy.
But above all of it, completely dominating his psyche, was a deeply pathological, psychotic thrill of absolute satisfaction.
He felt like the absolute greatest grandmaster in the world, taking his single most valuable piece and using it to flawlessly, permanently lock down the entire board.
"A great King must always be willing to make sacrifices."
Joffrey muttered under his breath, his fingers slowly, lovingly tracing the gold-plated trim of his heavy crossbow.
"And he must also demand that others make sacrifices for him."