“I didn’t—”
“You come in here like an angry landlord,” he said over her. “But I’m not your tenant. I’m your logical conclusion, the place where all your unrestrained violence and greed and spectacle meet in one glorious, gory package! That’s why I keep growing despite everything you’ve done to stop me, including shoving me to the very bottom of your city. But you can’t root me out, DFZ. You’re the reason I exist.”
“And I’ll be the reason you go down!” the DFZ cried in my voice. “You abuse my people and splatter my name with blood! The world sees your barbarism and thinks it’s the same for all the DFZ! But my citizens are not your playthings, and this city deserves better than you!”
The Gameskeeper sneered. “Please. Your citizens are why I’m still here. It’s mostly out-of-towners who buy the tickets, but it’s the people of the DFZ who profit and worship me. I’ve brought steady income to the lowest points of your precious city. For the people of Rentfree, I’m a better god than you’ve ever been.”
The city’s rage roared through me. “You fight my homeless for sport!”
“And who let them be homeless?” the Gameskeeper asked, glaring at the god behind my eyes. “You let them sink. All I did was give them a way to climb back out. You think all those ‘desperate people’ you moralize over would flock to me if I didn’t give them a better deal? No. They fight in my arena because dying to the screams of the crowd for a chance at a better life is better than dying on your streets alone, forgotten and hopeless.”
“That’s not true,” the DFZ said desperately. “You take advantage of those who have nothing and turn them into a mockery! That’s not freedom!”
“It’s their choice. Don’t you hold that sacred?”
The DFZ flinched inside me, and the Gameskeeper went in for the kill. “You go on and on about how you’re a city of free will, but you only support those who use that freedom in ways you approve of. You’re always trying to change, always shuffling neighborhoods and teaming up with soft-souled weaklings like the Peacemaker in a vain attempt to be what you’re not. To be better. But you can’t change what you are. You’re the DFZ, the city where the strong survive and the weak get crushed, just like they do in my arena. Look at it that way, and we’re one and the same.”
“I’m nothing like you!”
“But you are,” he pressed. “That’s why you’re so scared of me. While you hide and shift and try to bury your nature, I embrace this city for what it is: a giant arena, a constant fight for supremacy. I’m the pure expression of what you are too cowardly to accept, and in a city where only the strong survive, that makes me the winner.” He grinned. “Face it, I’m a better DFZ than you are.”
The city began to tremble. “You’re not!”
“Deny it all you want. I’ll happily build an empire on your rejects. I’ve already taken Rentfree, and look how well that’s gone for me.” He tilted his head at the arena behind him. “I’m well established, and the more I show people what this city is really about—power, ambition, the triumph of the strong—the bigger I get. I’m the god they want. You’re nothing but a bunch of shuffling buildings.”
My god was panicking by the time he finished, her frantic thoughts washing over mine until her fear and doubt was all I could feel. He was right, wasn’t he? She was a terrible city. She’d always known she was. Everyone thought so. Even when she strove and changed to be better, she couldn’t stop people from suffering. No one was happy here. Her streets were always washed in tragedy and violence and dog eating dog. What if the Gameskeeper was the true face of the DFZ? What if she was nothing but a—
“He’s wrong.”
The city jumped. The words had come from my lips, but unlike everything else I’d said over the last five minutes, these were actually mine.
“You don’t know anything about the DFZ,” I told the Gameskeeper, stepping in front of my dad since the jig was up. “Sure, she’s a hard city where people fight each other for every inch, but she’s also a place where they succeed without shanking their neighbors. For every terrifying underpass and back alley, there’s bright places full of wonder and opportunity. That’s why so many people move here despite the slums and the giant rats and the blood-soaked commercials you’re constantly running: because the DFZ is a city of free will. It is a place where anything can happen and anyone can start over. You say people use their freedom here to do terrible things, and that’s true, but it’s also true that they use it to lift each other up. The difference is that the DFZ encourages the good and strives to be better while you do nothing but amplify the bad.”
The Gameskeeper narrowed his bloody eyes at me. “What do you know? You’re the pampered daughter of a dragon. You know nothing about survival.”
“I know because I did it! You think my dad let me move here? I ran to the DFZ for the same reason everyone else does: because I wanted to live free. This city gave me that, and I’ve fought tooth and nail to keep it. And before you say that proves your point, my struggles were nothing like the tragedies you put on. Your shit isn’t even real!”
“You think that’s not real?” the Gameskeeper spat, pointing at the bloodstained sand behind him.
“Not a bit,” I said. “I’ve been to your fights, and every single one is a setup. How could they not be? You’re an arena god, a self-professed entertainer, and entertainment’s all
