"Speak! Who the hell was it?!"
Joffrey put every ounce of his strength into every single kick!
"Who gave the order?! Who told you to kill my father?!"
Pycelle's body convulsed on the floor, bloody foam mixed with shattered teeth constantly spilling from his mouth.
He wanted to die.
Right now, he just wanted the sweet release of death!
But Joffrey clearly wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily.
"Your Grace, you're going to beat him to death."
Cersei scrambled up from the floor, her voice laced with sheer panic.
She didn't give a damn if Pycelle lived or died.
She was terrified that Joffrey, in his blind rage, was going to completely obliterate House Lannister's entire spy network in King's Landing.
Joffrey completely ignored her.
His bloodshot, rabid eyes were locked dead onto the half-dead Grand Maester bleeding out on the stones.
"Lord Lynn."
Varys's sickly-sweet, honeyed voice chimed in at the absolute worst possible moment.
"A man of your vast experience... perhaps you know a way to make the Grand Maester talk?"
Every single pair of eyes in the room snapped to Lynn.
From start to finish, Lynn had just stood off to the side, watching the carnage unfold like a completely detached spectator.
He looked at Varys, then down at the mangled mess that used to be Pycelle.
"I've heard that when a man is in enough excruciating pain, he'll say absolutely anything just to make it stop."
Lynn's voice was dead calm.
"But of course, we could try a different approach."
Lynn closed the distance, crouched down next to Pycelle, and stared into that unrecognizable meat-grinder of a face.
"Grand Maester. I heard that when Lord Eddard Stark was Hand of the King, he actively tried to stop King Robert from participating in the tourney and the melee?"
"Did that ruin your little assassination plot?"
A faint glimmer of light sparked in Pycelle's cloudy eyes, and he nodded frantically.
"So, you didn't get the chance to make your move that time, did you?"
Pycelle nodded again, raw, naked pleading bleeding into his gaze. He desperately wanted Lynn to beg for his life.
"Look at that. He's still perfectly lucid."
Lynn suddenly smiled. He stood back up and looked at Joffrey.
"He knows exactly what he did, and exactly when he did it."
Joffrey froze.
"The first time, Ned Stark blew up your plan."
Lynn's pacing was slow, deliberate, and lethal.
"And then what? There was a second time, wasn't there?"
Pycelle's entire body violently jerked, staring up at Lynn in absolute terror.
How the hell did he know?!
"A second time?"
Joffrey chewed on the words, his face warping into something even more demonic.
"Speak! When was the second time you tried to kill my father?!"
He raised his heavy boot, ready to cave the old man's chest in again.
"Your Grace." Lynn smoothly cut in, stopping him.
"Let him say it himself."
"If he refuses to talk, I have plenty of ways to pry his mouth open. But that hardly seems fair."
Pycelle looked at Joffrey's suspended, steel-toed boot, then over at Lynn's bottomless eyes that looked like they could slice straight through his soul.
At that exact second, his psychological defenses utterly shattered.
"I'll tell you... I'll tell you..."
He wailed, the words slurring through his shattered jaw.
"It was... it was Lord Tywin..."
"The second time... he ordered me to... to drug the King's wine..."
Cersei swayed on her feet, the blood violently draining from her face until she was ghostly white.
"What kind of drug?!" Joffrey demanded.
"It... it was a slow-acting poison..."
Pycelle gasped out, his words broken and fragmented.
"It wasn't designed to kill the King outright..."
"It was just meant to... to amplify his emotions... to make his rage... his lust... spiral completely out of control..."
"Lord Tywin said... a King who has lost his mind is far more useful... than a dead one..."
"He ordered me... to just stand in front of the Small Council every day... and report that the King was in perfect health... that was all..."
The council chamber plunged into dead, suffocating silence.
Ser Barristan Selmy gripped the hilt of his sword so hard his knuckles turned bone-white.
He thought back to the final months of King Robert's life.
He had become erratic, explosive, completely drowning in booze and whores, totally deaf to anyone's advice or warnings.
Everyone just assumed it was the King giving in to his own worst vices.
Nobody even considered that it was an incredibly sinister, slow-burn assassination engineered by Tywin Lannister!
Protecting the King was the absolute sworn duty of the Kingsguard. This revelation made Barristan look like a completely incompetent fool.
"So... my father's final descent into madness... that was all because of that old dog Tywin?!"
Joffrey's voice violently shook.
But it wasn't just pure rage anymore. It was laced with an unspeakable, crushing sense of betrayal and sorrow.
The father he worshipped, the man he looked up to like a literal god, had been unknowingly played like a cheap fiddle by his own grandfather.
"And the third time?!"
Joffrey roared, his vocal cords tearing.
"The third time was the hunt! Wasn't it?!"
Pycelle was completely broken. He spilled absolutely everything.
"Yes... yes..."
"The King drank the spiked wine... his mind... he was already severely compromised..."
"That's why... that's why he recklessly charged straight at the boar..."
"And the boar... they had arranged for that too... but I don't know why, it seemed unnaturally huge... far stronger than a normal beast..."
"And then... then the King was gutted..."
"Lord Tywin's direct orders were... I had to... I had to guarantee the King... didn't survive..."
"So... so I didn't clean the wound... and I deliberately packed it with boar shit... claiming it had miraculous healing properties..."
"But it was a lie... I had studied it previously... I knew the feces would cause a massive, lethal infection and a fatal fever..."
"And then... I used a red-hot iron to seal the filth inside the wound... and pumped him full of milk of the poppy..."
"Everything I did... was to make sure he... died quietly..."
The truth.
The raw, bloody, unfiltered truth.
Vomited out by a terrified, pathetic old man trying to save his own skin, sentence by agonizing sentence.
Joffrey stood completely frozen.
His brain essentially flatlined.
His father's death wasn't a tragic accident.
It was a highly calculated, meticulously orchestrated execution!
The mastermind was the grandfather he had always feared and respected, Tywin Lannister!
The accomplice was the Grand Maester he had implicitly trusted, Pycelle.
Joffrey slowly shifted his gaze to his mother standing nearby, her face completely drained of color.
Did she know?
Was she in on it too?
Why did she look so goddamn terrified?
"Haha... HAHAHAHA..."
Joffrey suddenly started laughing. A hollow, desolate laugh completely hollowed out by despair and pure, unadulterated madness.
He stumbled backward, slamming heavily into the long oak table of the council chamber.
Golden goblets and heavy parchment scattered across the floor.
"So that's how it is... that's how it is..."
He muttered to himself, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face.
He was crying for his murdered father.
And he was crying for himself.
Crying because he was the most pathetic, colossal joke in the entire world.
He had revered one of the murderers like a god.
He had treated the other murderer's lapdog as a loyal servant.
What the hell was he?
He was an absolute, undisputed moron!
A complete clown!
"Blegh—"
A mouthful of dark blood suddenly spewed from Joffrey's mouth, splashing across the polished marble floor.
His body swayed violently, and he collapsed straight backward like a felled tree.
"Your Grace!"
"Joffrey!"
Barristan and Cersei screamed in unison, lunging forward.
The entire council chamber devolved into absolute chaos.
Only Lynn remained perfectly still.
He watched as the young King, completely overwhelmed by psychotic rage and trauma, passed out cold and was hauled up by the guards.
He looked at Cersei, desperately clutching her son, her face streaked with tears and raw terror.
Finally, his gaze dropped to Pycelle, who was currently a pile of mashed meat on the floor.
Varys had quietly drifted up to Lynn's side without making a sound.
"My Lord, this move of yours... it is far more lethal than any poison."
The Spider whispered, his tone laced with genuine awe.
Lynn just smirked, saying absolutely nothing.
He knew that from this exact second forward, House Lannister's grip on King's Landing was completely and permanently shattered.
When Joffrey woke up, he was going to mutate into a rabid dog living entirely for revenge.
He was going to tear the throat out of anyone carrying the Lannister name.
And Tywin Lannister, the great, proud lion of the Rock, was going to have to face the most terrifying, unhinged enemy imaginable—one he created with his own two hands!
He had it coming.
Just then, Joffrey groaned and slowly came to. The second his eyes snapped open, he violently shoved everyone away.
He struggled to his feet. His bloodshot eyes locked onto his mother with laser precision.
"Tell me!"
Joffrey's voice was dripping with absolute, lethal venom.
"Were you in on it too?!"
"Were you a part of this?!"
Cersei's body shook violently.
She stared into her son's eyes—eyes that were practically bleeding raw, unfiltered murder—and shook her head frantically.
"No... I didn't know... Joffrey, I swear to God I didn't know..."
Joffrey didn't press her.
He just stared at her, his eyes loaded with disgust and heavy suspicion.
Then, he slowly turned his head, locking back onto Pycelle.
The old man seemed to sense exactly what was coming. He shook so hard he actually pissed himself, a dark stain spreading across his robes, reeking of urine and blood.
Joffrey took a slow, deliberate step toward him.
Every single person in the council chamber completely stopped breathing.
Joffrey didn't hit him again. He didn't scream at him again.
He just walked right up to Pycelle and picked up the discarded longsword from the floor.
And then, with everyone watching in absolute, paralyzed horror...
He raised the blade and leveled the steel tip directly at Pycelle's throat.
"Tell me."
Joffrey stared down at the old man who had destroyed his entire world. His voice was terrifyingly calm.
"Did Cersei have a hand in this?"