Her first opponent, her friend Colin. She did feel bad knowing that he didn't realise who he was actually fighting. He had no idea what was really going on.

His attack was decent, but his movements were just too easy to evade. He manged to hit her a few times, but never on target, so she wound up winning.

Her next opponent, Adalia Gregory, was a young girl around her age. Her mousy brown hair was plaited down her back, and she had a slight figure which meant she was quick. Countess Raven was a very fast paced fighter, so this was a fun fight for her. Her swift movements gave Countess Raven a real challenge, and Adalia was putting up a great fight. The crowd was completely entranced by them, the fight was so close, and Adalia managed to beat her 5-4 in the end.

The commentator took to the microphone,

'Lords, ladies and gentlemen! Countess Raven has lost their first fight, could they be knocked off the top of the leaderboard? Adalia Gregory becomes the first fighter to win against them!'

The crowd cheered for Adalia, and Countess Raven clapped alongside, she always fought with respect for her opponents.

Her final opponent was Theo, if she could win against him, she'd win the prize. But she also felt guilty for what happened the night before.

The voices battled in her head.

She drew her sword to salute him, he sternly glanced at her and saluted her back.

She took her position, and took a deep breath,

Theo advanced, his blade aimed at her chest, and swiftly swished his point to evade her moves. She was focused intently yet trying to avoid eye contact with him. He was good she had to admit, and this was a tough fight for her, but with some of her bolder moves, she was able to avoid him and get the points. Before she knew it, she was 2-0 up on him, but the fight was far from over.

He managed to throw his body up and hook his blade to hit her back, making the score 2-1, he was catching up to her. She had to break out some of her more advanced skills.

In one smooth movement, Countess Raven was able to move herself slightly to the side to get behind Theo's knee when he lunged, then as he went for her foot, she could get the top of his head. Finally she had a good lead on him, it was just this last point and then the money was hers.

It was almost like she could taste the food she was planning to buy, she hadn't eaten a proper meal in days, so she was lethargic but mustered the last ounce of energy she had and threw herself forward in her power move and jumped to get her blade on his wrist as he pulled his arm up to defend her.

That was it. 1,000 delasi, all hers.

Theo approached her and put out his hand to shake hers and she gracefully accepted yet kept her head down to avoid eye contact. But for just a split second they locked eyes and his blue-grey eyes were fixed on hers.

'Congratulations, Countess Raven. I hope one day to find out who you are.'

She stopped for a second, and he kept looking at her.

'Do I know you? For some reason, you look familiar.'

'Erm, no, I actually get that a lot but I'm just a visitor to the Kingdom. We don't have competitions like this where I come from so I come here especially for it.'

'Oh...that makes sense. Well done, you're good.'

Just for the tiniest moment, she glanced into his eyes, which was a mistake. His beautiful wide eyes fixed on her, and his slight smile made her heart stop for a small second. But she quickly pulled herself out of it. No, this was wrong, absolutely no way was this going to happen to her, she had far too much else to worry about. And he had no idea that he was really looking at Esme behind the mask, which would almost certainly change things.

She averted her eyes up to the podium with Mayor Atlas, who had his thin, beastly eyes fixed on her. Giving her a solid stare that was like he was looking into her soul. His daughter, Darcey next to him in her blush pink dress also giving her a look of contempt. One of their guards muttered to him but Atlas brushed them off. Esme was clearly getting on the wrong side of him now.

There was nothing she could do now but let it play out. She'd tricked the entire town, and made the Mayor upset, Countess Raven was definitely more trouble than she thought, but she was too far in this now to stop. As long as she played her cards right, it wasn't like anyone would find out it was her, she had an excuse now anyway.

As she was handed the bag of prize money, to her left just out of the Plaza was a pack of knights watching over. They weren't giving up finding her, this was all a huge mess. The knights tracking her down, the town, the Mayor, there was no way she could think of to fix this, her disguise just had to carry on for the time being, whether she liked it or not.

 A new design for Esme's outfit