Joffrey had lost his soul.
He sat in the Red Keep's lavish dining hall, cutting the tender roast quail on his plate with a silver knife, but his thoughts had long since flown back to that warm suite on the Street of Silk last night.
The charged atmosphere, the girl's fresh scent of grass after rain, his first taste of ecstasy...
And those eyes, filled with pure worship and affection whenever she gazed at him...
"Joffrey."
Cersei's voice pulled him out of his heady fantasies.
Joffrey looked up to find his mother studying him.
"Where did you go last night?"
"To learn how to become a true king from Lord Lynn."
Without a second thought, Joffrey trotted out the explanation Lynn had taught him.
There was a trace of impatience in his voice, along with a sense of superiority he himself had yet to notice.
He was no longer a little boy who only knew how to hide behind his mother's skirts.
He was a man, a man who had tasted the true flavor of power!
Cersei frowned.
She disliked Joffrey's attitude, and disliked his growing closeness to Lynn even more.
But before she could reprimand him, Joffrey had already turned his gaze toward the other end of the table.
Sansa Stark.
Her head was lowered as she took small sips of the rich soup in her bowl.
Her bearing was elegant, beyond reproach.
Yet in Joffrey's eyes, she now looked like a statue devoid of feeling.
Beautiful, but lifeless.
And ever since he had ordered the Hound to kill that ignorant commoner, she no longer looked at him with her former adoration. That made him angry.
Joffrey thought of Liana.
He remembered her soft body, her sweet voice, that snug warmth, and the passion that could melt a man.