Jamil sat in his chair as it sagged under his weight, shaking in rage, a glass of wine clutched tightly in his palm, a step from shuttering.
He gritted his teeth and scowled at the men whispering and laughing around him, pointedly ignoring him or just throwing him a fleeting disdainful look over their shoulders.
They were looking down at him after his unprecedented loss last week.
" That little swine…" he mumbled under his breath, eyes burning with fury. " How dare he die like that, and just in front of that man!"
His eyes darted to the one man sitting at the very edge of the raised tier, their latest addition, rubbing his thin brown beard as he watched Jamil's guards clearing the body of the fallen slave who was defeated a moment earlier. He remained calm, uninterested in neither the other men chatting among themselves, nor the women offering them food and drink.
