The tournament progressed, as he watched from a nearby rooftop. He had failed his master in his previous assassination attempts of any potential Chosen, but that did not matter. So much time wasted, calculating, scheming, and pretending to be an oaf. Oh, well. What mattered was ultimately succeeding. He knew better than to check in with King Zolf. He had learned only to check in with good news.

  His target had slipped through his traps twice already, through no fault of his own. He had decided to leave nothing to chance. He had hired excellent assassins, even though his skin crawled thinking of the dark creatures he had dealt with. Since no Chosen had been captured for twenty years, the king had become testy. A testy king desired results, not promises. The king had dispatched chaos agents everywhere throughout the four countries, yet the location of the next Chosen remained a mystery. He knew his target had potential. It was time to kill, and he would watch at a distance, where nobody would know he even existed, much less had orchestrated the madness.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  He could feel another dark presence in that crowd. His gaze locked on a haggard-appearing woman with a black cat. These two had some connection to King Zolf as well; he could tell. One did not become an agent of chaos without the ability to feel the darkness in others. Perhaps it was time to work with another? He would have to stay hidden until he could assemble another method to kill his prey, if somehow his target wriggled through the trap he set up for this tournament. Though it was quite unlikely his target would live through the day, yet it always paid to have a backup plan just in case. For now, all he could do was watch, and hope for death.