Excerpt from Dark Days Tarot Guidebook by Emily Mundy:
Five of Swords
You may find yourself the loser in a dire battle over something sacred to you, but you remain innocent unlike your adversary, who is crippled by unjust rage. Defeat must be accepted. With a time of recovery devoted to introspection, perhaps you will realize why things happened the way they did. Your task now is to retrieve the mind’s weapon and heal your fierce heart, for fighting the outcome will only result in further loss of energy. Inverted or leftward denotes hidden dangers that will boil up if the querent persists in winning this unfair match. Now is a time to re-gather yourself, retreat, and heal your wounds.
Suggested Prompts:
upright: winning by losing
right: regathering; open to change
left: conflict; betrayal
reversed: win at all costs