Most people became House Masters for the money.

The appeal of both short-term and long-term financial gain was undeniable. Whether through winning the final tournament or receiving contributions from House supporters, the potential earnings could be substantial. Of course, given the connotations associated with such motivations, few would ever openly admit that money was their primary reason for participating.

Others sought the love and adoration of the people. This was especially appealing to those born into the lower classes, individuals who might otherwise have gone unnoticed had it not been for these events. With newfound recognition and support, many had managed to lift themselves out of the circumstances into which they had been born.

Then there were those who competed for glory.

For these individuals, it was a matter of honor, both for their House and for those who belonged to it. Perhaps this was the noblest motivation of all. Some sought to preserve their reputations, while others fought to uphold their family’s name and honor.

For Eva, however, it was a combination of money and glory.

Although Eva had married into the royal family, it was widely known that the Crown had a rather unfortunate history of financial mismanagement. While the King and Queen of Yeevsworth were considered wealthy, their resources were barely sufficient to maintain their own household, let alone support anyone beyond it.

Consequently, despite Eva’s marriage into the royal family, no one considered it particularly unusual that she continued managing her father’s business on his behalf.

The royal family, for its part, was less than enthusiastic about the entire event. Nevertheless, they remained silent, as the competitions brought considerable revenue into the kingdom.

When the Empire first established these events, it decreed that a portion of the funds generated by participating Houses would be distributed to both the kingdom and the Empire. Some of these funds were allocated toward the regional prize pool, while the remainder served as taxes paid to the Crown.

Naturally, the more active Houses a kingdom possessed, the greater its revenue.

Given these circumstances, Eva’s participation was hardly surprising.

To the younger participants, however, her involvement was something of a joke. They knew her only as a woman who had married into royalty and now managed a successful tavern. They had little understanding of who she had been before her marriage.

They would learn soon enough.

For certain specialty matches, stages were erected in the town square whenever the Crown deemed it appropriate. One of the day’s most anticipated matchups would feature Eva against the popular wandering minstrel, Salazar.

The performer’s admirers confidently placed their bets on his victory.

More cynical spectators, however, suspected that Salazar would deliberately concede the match. After all, he was a regular performer at the Grey House, and few believed he would risk losing such a prestigious engagement by humiliating its proprietor.

The Queen, meanwhile, had her own hopes for the outcome.

She wanted Eva to lose.

Preferably, her sister-in-law would suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of a lowly musician, lose face before the entire kingdom, and finally abandon what the Queen considered an embarrassing farce.

Yet among the spectators were those old enough to remember the performer once known as Lady Eva.

They remained conspicuously silent.

They remembered what she had been capable of, and they were curious to see whether she still possessed the talent that had once made her famous.

Had she truly retired all those years ago?

Or had she simply lost her touch?

Since the matchups had been announced beforehand, Eva and Salazar had already met privately to discuss their encounter.

Salazar had graciously offered to concede the match out of respect for his employer.

Eva would have none of it.

Instead, the two agreed upon a best-of-three competition. Each would perform individually for the first two rounds, while the third would involve both of them engaging directly with the audience, playing off each other’s personalities.

Eva made only one request.

“Don’t go easy on me, Salazar. I expect you to play fair.”

Knowing her temperament, Salazar readily agreed.

When the time finally came, Eva ascended one stage while Salazar took his place on the opposite platform.

The crowd was enormous.

Many had gathered in anticipation of the absolute carnage they expected to witness.

When the overseer officially declared the beginning of the match, Eva stepped forward to explain the terms.

“This will be a best-of-three match,” she announced. “Each of us will take turns performing. We determined the order beforehand, and Salazar will perform first. I’ll follow in the second round. For the third, we’ve agreed to engage all of you together.”

Salazar nodded in confirmation.

A wave of murmurs swept through the crowd.

So there would be no concession.

No deliberately thrown match.

This was going to be a genuine competition.

For many spectators, this was their first real encounter with the matron of the Grey House.

Although Eva was known to have married into royalty, she rarely interacted with the general public outside of her business. Most of her visible associations were with members of the aristocracy or her own staff.

Consequently, those who had never met her personally assumed she must be cold, arrogant, or impossibly snobbish.

Yet here she stood, preparing to compete against one of her own performers.

And despite her connection to the royal family, she was competing under the name Lady Blackwood.

Salazar opened the first round with a rousing rendition of one of his most popular songs.

The crowd immediately came alive.

People cheered, clapped, and sang along, thoroughly enjoying themselves.

To everyone’s surprise, Eva seemed to be enjoying the performance just as much as they were.

She clapped enthusiastically, encouraged the audience to join in, and openly cheered for her opponent.

Those who had expected a stiff, humorless aristocrat began reconsidering their opinions.

Salazar won the first round, as expected.

However, to Eva’s surprise, a portion of the audience had voted for her despite her not being the one performing.

She smiled warmly and thanked those who had supported her.

When the second round began, Salazar pulled up a chair.

He had only recently heard about Eva’s singing performance the other night, and he was eager to see what the true master of the Grey House could do.

What followed stopped him, and much of the audience, in their tracks.

Eva raised her hands gracefully into the air.

Almost out of nowhere, playing cards appeared around her, arranging themselves into a perfect circle. They rotated slowly, forming a floating ring around her body.

Then she began to hum.

The crowd gradually fell silent.

Recognizing the key, Salazar instinctively began accompanying her on his lute, his melody weaving effortlessly around her voice.

For a moment, it seemed as though the two were performing together rather than competing.

But among the older spectators, recognition was beginning to dawn.

They remembered that voice.

They knew what was coming.

As Eva began to sing, an elderly woman suddenly called out from the crowd.

“Lady Eva! Pick me!”

Heads turned toward the voice.

Standing among the spectators was a shabby-looking woman with salt-and-pepper hair. Her worn face was filled with an almost desperate hope.

Eva smiled and turned one of the floating cards.

The Six of Cups.

“Don’t worry, my love,” Eva sang softly. “He’s coming home…”

Two more cards separated themselves from the ring.

The Sun.

The Two of Cups.

“…and he won’t be alone. He’s bringing home his bride and their child.”

Eva’s smile widened.

“You are a grandmother!”

The elderly woman burst into tears.

“God bless you, Lady Eva! Thank you! Thank you!”

Before the crowd could fully recover, a young man raised his hand.

“Lady Eva! Me next!”

His tone carried an unmistakable hint of mockery.

Eva turned another card.

The Queen of Wands, reversed.

Almost immediately, the Page of Swords followed.

“My lad,” Eva sang, “she doesn’t want you. Only your gifts and attention.”

The young man’s grin began to fade.

“But there’s a quieter one, a shy little thing, who holds you dearly in her heart.”

Suddenly, a pretty young maiden standing not far from him turned bright red.

She hurried away from the crowd, attempting, rather unsuccessfully, to remain inconspicuous.

Several spectators gasped.

Those familiar with the young woman knew perfectly well that she had harbored feelings for the young man for quite some time.

Apparently, he realized it too.

Without another word, he hurried after her.

That was all it took.

The crowd erupted.

“Lady Eva! Over here!”

“Pick me next!”

“Lady Blackwood! Please!”

Requests came from every direction as Eva continued singing, turning cards, and responding to the people gathered before her.

By the time the five minutes had elapsed, the audience was completely captivated.

The overseers declared Eva the winner of the second round.

“Now THIS is a matchup!” exclaimed a man in the crowd.

Nearby, an older gentleman watched with tears in his eyes.

“I thought I’d never get to see Lady Eva take the stage again.”

He shook his head, smiling at the memory.

“She saved my life once, you know. Told me not to take my usual route home one evening. The next morning, I heard that rogues had robbed and killed a man in that very alley. The same alley I’d walked through every night for years.”

He wiped his eyes.

“I never forgot that.”

The third and final round was considerably less dramatic, though no less entertaining.

Rather than performing, Eva and Salazar spent their allotted time exchanging jokes, answering questions, and playfully teasing one another.

Naturally, someone eventually asked the question that had been on many minds.

“Lady Blackwood! If you can see the future, why are you competing in the first place?”

Eva laughed.

“Because a seer cannot see their own future. That’s the drawback of our gift. Our own biases prevent us from being impartial when it comes to ourselves.”

A murmur of understanding rippled through the audience.

Salazar, of course, was not about to let the conversation remain serious for long.

Soon the two were trading increasingly outrageous jabs, most of them revolving around Salazar’s reputation as a ladies’ man.

Eva pointed out that, judging by the number of women among his House supporters, he appeared to have already assembled a personal harem.

The crowd roared with laughter.

Mostly because there was more than a little truth to the accusation.

Salazar retaliated with jokes of his own, and the two continued entertaining the spectators until the overseer called time.

The final round was close.

Very close.

But when the votes were tallied, Salazar emerged victorious by a handful of points.

As the magical barrier separating the two stages dissolved, Eva and Salazar approached one another.

They exchanged a friendly pat on the arm, smiling with the easy familiarity of people who had known each other for years.

And suddenly, the audience understood.

They were not enemies.

Nor were they simply employer and employee.

They were friends, enjoying a spirited competition.

For Eva, the match had accomplished something far more valuable than a victory.

She had earned the affection and respect of many among Salazar’s supporters.

And she had done it without asking him to sacrifice his own success.

Yet the spectators were not the only ones watching.

Her Royal Highness observed the proceedings from the upper balconies overlooking the town square. She had come specifically to witness Eva’s humiliation, hoping to see her sister-in-law thoroughly humbled before the kingdom.

When Eva lost the first round, the Queen was positively ecstatic. She danced around her private suite in celebration, so consumed by her delight that she failed to notice Eva had received a surprising number of votes despite not being the one performing.

The second round, however, was an entirely different matter.

As Eva captivated the crowd, the Queen’s face grew increasingly red with rage. By the time the overseers declared Eva the winner, Her Royal Highness was beside herself. She stomped around the suite, screaming and cursing in a fit of fury.

Thankfully, the thunderous cheers from the square drowned out her tantrum.

When the third and final round concluded, and Salazar emerged victorious by the narrowest of margins, the Queen should have been satisfied.

After all, Eva had lost.

But the Queen was anything but pleased.

Instead, she erupted into yet another tantrum, throwing whatever she could get her hands on and shattering several objects throughout the room. It took the combined efforts of one of her maids and a generous quantity of wine fortified with brandy to finally calm her down.

Yes, Eva had lost the battle.

But she had not been humiliated.

Quite the contrary. She had earned the admiration of the crowd, and the Queen had been forced to witness every agonizing moment of it.

The longer Her Royal Highness contemplated the outcome, the more her resentment festered.

She no longer wanted merely to see Eva humbled.

She wanted to grind her into dust.

Scattered throughout the crowd were several other House Masters.

Each had their own interests.

Their own ambitions.

Their own reasons for participating in the tournament.

Before the match, many had dismissed Eva as an egotistical aristocrat, a woman who had married into royalty and now sought to bully her way into a competition where she did not belong.

But after witnessing her performance, their opinions had begun to change.

She was nothing like they had imagined.

In fact, she was considerably more than they had expected.

A few began contemplating the possibility of joining her House. After all, nothing in the rules prohibited one House Master from becoming a member of another’s party.

Others saw her as someone worth keeping close, whether to secure their own positions or to improve their standing.

Still others regarded her as a potential threat, someone whose movements would need to be watched carefully.

And then there was one.

One who had barely taken his eyes off her throughout the entire match.

He was utterly enamored.

For reasons entirely their own, each of these House Masters came to the same conclusion.

Lady Blackwood was someone worth watching.