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January 15, 2025 Sneak Peek at Kings Wilde
Warning:
This is a work in progress and
is subject to change at any time.
Read at Your Own Risk!
Copyright 2025
All Rights Reserved.
Prologue - What Lay In The Cards
Juneau, Alaska, Summer of 1996
In the dark, wood-paneled den, the fireplace was cold. It was too warm in July to need it. Only a single lamp still glowed on the far end table.
Winnie had left a bowl of chips and a tray of homemade cookies on the coffee table beside a sleeve of sodas, but no one sat on the leather sofas. She had hugged Rylan and told him not to worry. He would always have a place in her home.
Rylan nodded, but didn’t smile. None of them ate anything.
Rylan had shed no tears and hadn’t spoken in days. He stayed close to Armand and Nick. Armand squeezed his friend’s shoulder.
There were no words to say. The situation sucked, and Rylan suffered in silence, far beyond his usual stoicism.
Rylan’s father asked Viktor to help him with the arrangements. Tomasso didn’t want to go home to his empty house. Winnie looked after his son better than he could.
Rylan’s mom had passed away. The days leading to the funeral had seen Rylan wandering the Wilde home as a ghost, lost in his grief. Nick let him be without pressing him, so Armand did likewise.
They’d spent the day at the chapel, sitting through the eulogy, then followed the hearse to the cemetery and tossed flowers onto the casket before they waited while the backhoe filled in the grave. Armand watched it all, helpless to help his friend.
After the funeral, they had returned to Nick’s house.
It grew late. Winnie had cleaned her kitchen and disappeared into her bedroom after kissing them all on their heads. Rylan’s father remained locked in the study with Viktor. Armand figured Rylan would stay the night again.
If Viktor decided, he might always stay. It happened to Armand a couple of years ago. Armand guessed it was why Viktor spoke so long with Tomasso.
The three boys were tight, but Rylan suffered. Armand didn’t like it. If he could have changed things, he would have. But he wasn’t good at people.
Nick handled others better. Rylan was the quiet one who always had the inside scoop. He had a gift for puzzles.
Nick picked up a deck of cards. Rylan shook his head. Armand understood. He wasn’t in the mood to play, either. The weight of the last few days had settled on them all, leaving them somber.
Still, the three of them sat in the den around the dark wood card table, still dressed in suits, looking like the men they would become, rather than the boys they still were. That night no cigars fumed the air, and no vodka whetted the throats. But Nick dealt cards like strange magic in the dream.
He cut the cards and shuffled them, then stared at Rylan. Rather than deal them each a hand, Nick fanned the deck in his hand and pulled out cards one by one.
The king of diamonds slid out of the deck and landed face up on the table. A thin almost nonexistent mist of smoke hung in the air above the table.
“That’s your dad.”
Viktor Wilde’s moniker in the streets of Juneau was the man with the axe. Rylan glanced at the card, then whispered the first words he’d spoken in days before he returned to staring at nothing, lost in his grief.
Nick flipped the king of spades on the table next.
“This one is Armand. One day, he will rule an empire as the head of the family.”
Oddly, the card looked warped, the king's head was that of a great horned owl.
Nick nodded at Armand. Once, Armand had idly wondered how kings lived in medieval times when they researched a school project for European history.
Nick thought kings lived as his father did, but with less technology and castles instead of houses. He believed Armand would eventually take over as the head of the Wilde family.
The dark monarch lay on the table next to the other card. Armand could almost believe Nick spoke the truth, but he couldn’t do it alone. Nick was better at dealing with other people. Rylan was good at gaining the information. They needed to do it together.
Nick drew out the king of clubs and tossed it down beside the other two. A strange green dragon head shimmered in place of the king.
Armand felt relief. Nick would help him. They would take over the Wilde family business together when Viktor needed them to step up.
“I'm the cowboy. I walk a solitary road out of necessity, even if the family remains the most important thing in my life forever.”
Armand stared at the cards. Nick had a gift for explaining things with cards. He was a gambler, but he rarely ever lost a bet. Rylan focused on the cards and looked at Nick, wondering what his friend wanted to say.
Nick pulled out the king of hearts and laid it on the table next to the other three cards.
“This one is…”
“Tomasso?” Armand asked.
Rylan shook his head. Armand studied the card with a strange looking winged man with antennae and a sword behind his head.
“Dad is La Hire. That one is me.”
“Yep. Your dad is a true warrior, but La Hire will exit the game. You are the king of hearts. Your loyalty exists for eternity.”
Rylan cocked his head to the side and stared at the cards. His whispered words conveyed the pain he couldn’t speak. Nick drew him out and used the cards to roll the dark cloud away from Rylan.
“I’m the suicide king because I’m not sure I even want this life.”
“Things will change. The future holds things we can’t understand yet. We need you, or it won’t happen.”
Nick pulled three more cards from the deck. An ace of spades, a queen of spades, and a joker. He tossed them onto the table.
Armand frowned. The joker and the queen of spades were two cards too many for the proper Apocalypse hand. What did Nick mean?
Rylan picked up the joker and the ace, nodding as if he saw whatever strange vision Nick saw in the cards. Armand waited. He didn’t need to understand it. He wanted only for Rylan to be easier in his mind, for his friendship to continue.
“Things change when the Death card is the Wild Joker. This Black Lady is a wild card in the mix. I’ll wait before I decide.”
Armand never knew his own father. His mother hadn’t been more than the woman who gave him life, so understanding Rylan’s predicament wasn’t easy for him. But living with the Wilde’s for two years had changed everything for him.
Rylan wouldn’t choose to live with Winnie and Viktor, even if Winnie might have wanted it. His father mattered too much. He remained a regular visitor to the Wilde home, though, until long after his father also exited the game. True to Nick’s words, Rylan’s loyalty remained a lifelong constant.
He chose against a self demise that night and continued to choose against it in favor of his friendship with Nick and Armand many times over the years.
Grief ached in the soul, but it made a person stronger. It never left, but it didn’t always loom so large.
Nick had reached through the grief and used a strange deck of playing cards to convince their friend his life remained worth living.
Armand picked up the weird owl-like king of spades. It would be his responsibility to ensure the truth of Nick’s promises, even if he didn't clearly understand the game.
Years later, they would look back on the night and agree it was when their destinies permanently entwined. The night Nick explained what lay in the cards to comfort their friend in his grief and painted the path into a future none of them could truly comprehend.
A note from the author: I don't write YA. Although the characters in this scene are in their youth, it's a scene which merely sets the stage for the Kings Wilde Miniseries, which picks up when the three boys are men grown in their mid-thirties.
Thank you for visiting the scrying pool of Draoithe Preview Chapters. I sincerely hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the future of the dream. - OK
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