“Be still…” repeated the voice at his ear. The speaker now wrapped their arm across his chest, their hand positioned above his heart. “They’re serving Fool’s Fire…Eat…”

He could feel something cold had been brought to his mouth. His lips were chilled by what felt like frost. Kolkamitza wanted to refuse but his jaw autonomously fell open. A fork was wrested between his teeth.

The delicacy on his tongue crackled, began to dissolve like candyfloss. It tasted like some bitter root.

With the offering now fully ingested, the crowd began to chitter and whisper amongst themselves. Kolkamitza asked what was happening. He heard a moan that was explicitly carnal, followed by footsteps clattering across that great marble foyer. These clacks grew fainter, more distant, soon becoming the slight groans of the ceiling above.

They were upstairs now, moving away, moving perhaps to the attic with its open hatch that led to the living world above.

Eventually there were no sounds at all.

“Hello?” croaked Kolkamitza. His voice bounced through the vacated hall like a stone skipping across still waters.

The hand was still at his chest. “Shhhh…” the voice purred, “listen…”

Kolkamitza strained. A new noise, one fluttery and crisp, flooded the dining hall. He then heard the familiar cawing of a jackdaw.

“Rheims?” he called in a broken voice.

“Thank you, darling…”

At last the hand was lifted from his chest. Kolkamitza could only listen to the telltale sounds of the woman crossing the foyer, scaling the spiral staircase, fading across the upper corridor with its fine walnut panelling.

All around him, the air was thinning, growing more and more scarce. Every heartbeat caused a flaring pain in his chest.

“Wait…” he muttered, but too late. His heart felt taut, like a fist within his chest. It began to slow. Wilting, resigned, Kolkamitza counted off his heart’s final beats, which were three in number.

Ten of Swords: Ruin

Ten of Swords: Ruin

The days had been thick with summer; with blades of sun and stifling heat and swarms of noisy, thirsty insects.

The eldest sister awoke first and was delighted to discover that this morning was the sort she and Celeste both held precious; a day when the sun stumbles a bit in its swagger, when it falls behind a drape of tin-grey clouds. A day when the swelter is pierced, when the trance of surf and shade and cicadas rattling in the greenery is threatened by the reminder that autumn is never far behind, that all things do pass.

This autumnal omen poured itself between the trees and columns of the great house like cold treacle. It might last only a handful of hours and may well be ignored by those who cannot grasp its meaning, its visions of harvests reaped and nights distending.