Three Kings

And written by

Mary Anne Mohanraj | Peter Newman

Peadar Ó Guilín | Melinda M. Snodgrass | Caroline Spector

Harper Voyager

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Copyright © George R.R. Martin and the Wild Cards Trust 2020

Jacket design by Mike Topping © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Jacket images © Shutterstock.com

George R.R. Martin and the Wild Cards Trust 2020 asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008361488

Ebook Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9780008361501

Version: 2020-04-16

for Tom Doherty,

Lord of the Tor,

who brought our universe back to life

our aces thank you

our jokers thank you

and all our writers thank you

Contents

Cover

Title Page A WILD CARDS MOSAIC NOVEL Edited by Melinda M. Snodgrass Assisted by George R.R. Martin And written by Mary Anne Mohanraj | Peter Newman Peadar Ó Guilín | Melinda M. Snodgrass | Caroline Spector

Copyright

Dedication

Saturday February 29th

Sunday March 1st

Monday March 2nd

Tuesday March 3rd

Wednesday March 4th

Thursday March 5th

Friday March 6th

Saturday March 7th

Sunday March 8th

Monday March 9th

Tuesday March 10th

Wednesday March 11th

Thursday March 12th

Friday March 13th

Saturday March 14th

Epilogue

Closing Credits

The Wild Cards Universe

About the Publisher

F ASCINATING .

It should have been impossible to ambush Badb, Goddess of War. Every crow in Belfast lent her their senses. She soared over a bleeding city, from one pocket of violence to the next. From the women shaving the head of a weeping collaborator to the screams of a man shot through the back of the knees. The city had half the population it should have had. Its buildings crumbled, paint flaking away except from slogans that every day were refreshed: ‘NOT AN INCH!’ ‘BRITS OUT!’ ‘NO NATS HERE!’

She had caused it all. Manipulating the angry; creating heroes and renewing herself through their sacrifice.

But she hadn’t expected this.

Three teenaged boys with hurley sticks caught her in an alleyway.

‘Hand it over!’ cried the nearest, his voice breaking mid-sentence. He had blonde hair and a shamrock tattoo that might get him killed only three streets from here.

Behind him, a second boy, darker this time, pushed forward. ‘Yeah!’ he cried. ‘We want all of it!’ Despite the braggadocio, this was their first robbery. Badb could tell such things. Their knuckles were white on the wood of the hurls. Their Adam’s apples bobbed and bobbed.

‘Let me get my purse.’

She really didn’t have time for this. Something was very wrong. She left her body, flicking from crow to crow, finding nearby streets to be far too quiet. No bombs went off. No snatch squads screeched out of police stations.

‘Smash her, Paddy!’ the second boy said as she returned to her body. ‘She’s delayin’. It’s on purpose.’

‘I have it here,’ Badb said, allowing a quiver of fear into her voice to make them feel more manly. ‘Please don’t hurt me!’ She knew what they were seeing. An old, old woman. Which she was. With aching joints to slow her movements and additional indignities they couldn’t imagine – constant bleeding from cracks in her skin that only a layer of sopping bandages hid from view.

‘Hit her, Paddy.’

But Paddy probably had a granny of his own at home, and a conscience too. ‘No,’ he said, and licked his lips. ‘Not if she hands over the pension money. An Irishman keeps his word.’

Badb’s arthritic fingers got the purse open as the three boys crowded closer. Inside was a razor blade. With shaking hands, she drew it across Paddy’s throat. While he stared, amazed, still on his feet, she hobbled forward two more steps and got the second boy too.

Badb’s hips stabbed at her as she turned. She would need to regenerate very soon, or old age would leave her incapable of any movement at all.

By now the third boy was turning to flee. But she had a crow waiting. It swooped down from a nearby building, a missile of beak and black feathers, aimed straight at the teenager’s eyes …

And that’s when it happened. A pain such as the goddess had not felt in the longest time. A wrongness that jerked her out of her body and flung her awareness across the city to Sandy Row.

Disoriented, she tried to understand what had brought her here.

It had begun to drizzle. Boys and girls stood by the gable end of a house where patriotic hands had painted Queen Margaret on the day of her coronation. Badb watched the children from the eyes of one crow and then another until, suddenly, the gang sprang forward as one. A boy and a girl carried a net between them, she in sneakers, he in boots, the laces dangerously trailing.