Nightmare of Swords

Element: Air

Upright

·anxiety
·nightmares
·worry
·mental anguish

Reversed

·releasing fear
·perspective shift
·hope returning
·healing

Upright

Someone sits up in the dark with their face buried in their hands, nine blades hung in a row on the wall behind them, the candle long since burned to nothing. The Nine of Swords is the long night, the worry, the grief, the three a.m. of the mind when the same thought turns and turns. The card doesn't promise the blades will come off the wall. It only says they are on the wall, not in you, that the worst of this is in your head right now, and the worst of it does not make it less real, it only means the morning is still coming.

Reversed

Drawn reversed, the first grey light comes through the window and the breath goes a little looser, the sleep returns, the thought loosens its grip. Often it is reaching out, the friend, the call you should have made weeks back, the one small step you take toward dawn.

In the imagery

In a back room above the shop, a figure sits up in bed with their face in their hands, nine blades hung level on the dark wood wall behind. The candle has guttered to a cold pool of wax, the herbs above the door gone to shadow. The blades stay on the wall and not in the body, and that small fact, the steel kept at a distance, is the one mercy the dim scene holds out toward morning.

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Others in the swords