Five of Wands and Five of Swords

Competition and the cost of winning it. The Five of Wands is an even scrap that nobody is really losing; the Five of Swords is after the fight, with one figure holding the swords and the others walking away. The tradition reads the pair as the point where a contest stops being sporting.

Associated with arguments that somebody has started to win. The pair is unusually pointed that winning is the problem being described.

Rivalry that has produced a victor and a residue. Read for workplaces where a disagreement was settled by force of will rather than resolved.

The Five of Swords is the deck at its most direct about hollow victory. If the reading is asking how to prevail, this pairing is answering a question it thinks is the wrong one.