One rank, four suits
The Kings in tarot
Authority and the public use of it. The suit made accountable.
Kings are the outward, exercised form of their element: mastery that has taken responsibility and can be held to it.
King of Wands is enterprise and vision with the salamanders on his throne. King of Swords is judgement, and the hardest of the four to be on the wrong side of. King of Cups sits on a throne in a rough sea and stays dry, which is emotional command rather than emotional absence. King of Pentacles has the grapes, the bull and the castle behind him: material security that got built rather than inherited.
Two Kings in a spread is almost always a question about whose call something actually is.
The four Kings
The same idea in four elements. Reading them side by side is the fastest way to see what the rank is doing and what the suit is doing.
King of WandsWands · Fire read the full meaningleadership, vision, entrepreneurship
King of CupsCups · Water read the full meaningemotional maturity, diplomacy, wise counsel
King of SwordsSwords · Air read the full meaningauthority, impartial judgement, ethics
King of PentaclesPentacles · Earth read the full meaningprosperity, security, business acumen
The rest of the sequence
Ace through Ten, then the four court ranks. Reading down this list is reading the minor arcana as one story.
Number crossed with element
This is the whole trick to the minor arcana. Forty numbered cards look like forty things to memorise and are really ten numbers crossed with four suits. Learn what a Five does and what Cups are, and the Five of Cups is constructible before you have ever read its page.
The lesson on the numbers, Ace through Ten teaches the sequence properly, and the one on the court cards covers the sixteen that need their own study.