The Ten of Swords is card of endings: cruel, catastrophic endings.
This card often appears when a querent has been emotionally or physically wounded beyond all possible recovery. It frequently signposts adultery, betrayal, serious illness, death, hidden pain, and even severe psychological instability.
In the Rider Waite deck a male figure is shown prostrate, mortally wounded by the 10 swords which pierce the length of his spine. He is unable to stand and lies pinned down and bloody. The fact that the swords are shown to pierce the length of his spine is significant, since the spine is the chief conduit of the central nervous system. Any injury to this structure will result in death or severe paralysis. This shows the extreme devastation signified by the Ten of Swords. The body of water in the scene is seemingly without motion of ripples, thus indicating that whatever has unfolded has caused events to cease dramatically. The sky itself is depicted with a black ominous haze, indicating sickness, toxicity, and that a chapter has been closed.
In a love reading, this card is quite possibly the worst to have appear. If the Ten of Swords is an outcome card, it reveals that your relationship will end in the most devastating way. Either your partner will betray you, or they will damage your heart to the point where any sort of reconciliation is impossible.
This card can also signify domestic violence and psychological torture. If you are not already in a relationship with the person of interest, you would be wise to avoid them. If this card shows as your partner's feelings towards you, they may feel that you have deceived or betrayed them and they are not willing to rekindle things. Alternatively, it can indicate serious psychological troubles, hidden depression, grief and anguish. If you are not aware of being the source of your partner's pain, do be sure to check that there are not other issues teeming beneath the surface.
On the other hand, your personal struggles may be impacting the relationship negatively and it would be advisable to seek help to deal with unresolved trauma. If you are asking whether or not your lover will return to you, the answer is definitively negative as they feel that too much damage has been done. It can also represent that your lover will return but that you are in store for no end of heartache and grief.
Quite simply put, the Ten of Swords urges you to seek better opportunities in love as there is nothing worth salvaging where you are.
In a work and career reading the outlook is similarly bleak. The Ten of Swords foretells that business associates will abandon and cheat you, or that whatever projects you have been trying to launch will be unsuccessful. In a career context, this card can also indicate that rivals in the workplace will destroy your reputation and that you may not recover from this.
Positive Aspects: the worst is behind you and you can rebuild your life (sometimes applicable)
Negative Aspects: severe illness, injury, betrayal, grief, depression, psychological afflictions, death, ineluctable disaster, physical and/or mental abuse, infidelity
