“That is different,” Yong said, still growling deep in his throat. “Opal is my only daughter. Kos is a dog by your own admission. You can get another champion, one who actually wants to fight.”
“I’ve got plenty of champions,” the Gameskeeper said, seemingly completely unconcerned at being growled at by a dragon. “But there’s only one Mad Dog.” He leaned forward on his desk. “Do you know what he did?”
My father’s eyes flicked to me, but I wasn’t sure what the Gameskeeper was talking about, either. I knew Nik had worked for him doing all manner of dirty work before actually fighting in his arena, but he’d never told me any of the details, and frankly I didn’t want to know. I didn’t like hearing about Nik getting hurt or doing horrible things. Fortunately, it didn’t look as if my lack of knowledge mattered. Despite being the one who asked the question, the Gameskeeper seemed determined to answer it himself.
“He left,” he said, eyes flashing in the dark. “I rescued him from the street. Gave him his gun and his implants and his training. I made him what he is today, and he turned his back on me. Just when he was starting to build a name for himself, he abandoned his contract, stiffed his fans on fight night, and vanished without a word. When I sent people to bring him back, he killed them. He very nearly killed my best mage Kauffman earlier this year just for crossing his path.”
I took a shaky breath. Nothing he’d said was actually news, but I hadn’t thought about it all together like that. Hearing him say it, Nik sounded like a monster. Fortunately, my father wasn’t so easily swayed.
“I wouldn’t have thought that would bother you,” he said, tilting his head. “You run an arena where people trapped in contracts fight to the death. Surely you don’t expect loyalty.”
“I don’t expect it,” the Gameskeeper said sharply. “If Kos had tried to kill me or take over my operation, I’d have accepted that as life running its course, but he didn’t. He did worse. He ran. His cowardice is a mockery of everything I built this arena to be! My ring is a shrine to the strong, a place where warriors embrace their power and crush all who stand in their way. Every champion falls sooner or later, but that’s why champions exist. They’re the goal, the bar for new challengers to strive against. That’s how the cycle works. If the man at the top can simply leave before he is defeated, it undermines the entire operation!
“I’ve been trying to make Kos pay for that for years. Now he’s finally back on my leash, and you want me to sell him for money?” He scoffed. “I can make money anywhere, but what Mad Dog gives me, nothing can buy. He gives me purpose. Every time he walks into that arena, I win. I win over him, I win over this city, I win over all the people who lie and say they don’t want to see a fight. I give the blood-hungry crowds what no one else will, and they worship me for it, for I am the Gameskeeper! King of the arena! No one is too good for what I offer, and no one escapes me without a fight.”
With every word the Gameskeeper spoke, the magic in the room grew thicker. It was the exact same bloodlust magic I’d felt in the arena when the crowd was yelling at Nik to kill, but there was no crowd here. Just me and my father and this strange person who smelled of blood. The man I was starting to realize wasn’t a man at all. It was so obvious in hindsight, I felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. The Gameskeeper wasn’t a dragon or some other alien creature. He was one of us, a monster of our own creation.
He was a Mortal Spirit.
“And you’re slow on the pickup for a priestess of the DFZ.”
I snapped my head up to see the Gameskeeper staring down at me, his eyes glowing blood red in a face that was no longer benign or ordinary, but as blunt and cruel as a bloody fist.
“Did you really think I wouldn’t know you?” he asked, staring into me. “The moment you set foot in my domain, I knew. The dragon and his ruffled doll threw me for a little while I’ll admit, but there’s no way I wouldn’t ferret you out in the end. How could I not? We’re the same magic, you and I.” He leaned closer. “Sister.”
“Don’t call me that.”
The ringing words spoke through my mind and lips, but they weren’t mine. I hadn’t even felt her lurking, but suddenly the DFZ was there wearing my body like a suit, glaring down my nose at this little upstart who dared raise his head in her city.
“Do not address me so informally, monster,” the DFZ said through my gritted teeth. “We are not family, and you are not welcome in my domain.”
“But there’s nowhere else I could be,” the Gameskeeper said, facing the god of the city as fearlessly as he’d faced my father. “I was born here, same as you. We’re both the natural products of a city where anything can happen. Sometimes, that anything is me.”
The DFZ’s disgust washed over me like storm surge down a gutter. “You are nothing like me.”
“Of course I am,” he said, pointing at me. “That’s why you sent her. If we really weren’t related, you wouldn’t have to bother sending in your mortal eyes. You don’t spy on the Empty Wind or Papa Legba or any of the other gods who share your city because you don’t overlap with them. But we do.”
“Enough,” the city said.
“No!” the Gameskeeper yelled. “You sent your agent into my arena after years of pretending I didn’t exist! You will not ignore me to my face. You brag and brag about being the
