Ten of Blades

As my father always used to say, this is “not necessarily a card of violent death.” The implication being, of course, that usually it is.

A body pierced with ten blades, dead and abandoned to the carrion feeders. All the anxiety and fear of the Nine has come to pass, and there is nowhere left to run, nor body left to run with.

Though sometimes similar in appearance to the Tower in the absolute destruction, the Ten of Blades is not a card of change. It is  card of defeat, despair, destruction. The battle is lost, the war is lost, the massacre is complete, the village is burning, and there are no survivors. The sod is seeded with poison, the prisoners loaded on the ships, and the buzzards have stopped their circling to ravage the remains of the brave.

And yet- there is comfort in finding the bottom of the abyss. The only way from here is up.