The Scorpion Rules Read Online Free PDF

Alliance emerged from a regional shakeup among the losing parties. Like many nations it was defined by water: in this case, the drainage of the Ohio River basin. It stretched south to Nashville and north to Cleveland, with a capital at Indianapolis and a military-industrial center at Pittsburgh.
    The details do not really matter. What mattered to me was the border. The northern border of Cumberland was defined by a trickling ditch and a wattle fence, down the edge of the mined and marshy bed of old Lake Erie. On the other side of that fence were the watchtowers of the Pan Polar Confederacy: my nation. Unlucky for the Cumberlanders, to border a superpower.
    Unlucky for me, if they were thirsty enough.
    I needed only another sixteen months, and I would be of age. I would be released from the Precepture, my mother’s throne falling to regency (taken most likely by some pampered cousin with a conveniently hostage-aged child) until I could produce an heir and hostage of my own—a thing I did not care to dwell on.
    If there was no war in the next sixteen months, then I would live. Sixteen months is not long.
    And yet . . . the Cumberland hostage had been dragged to the Precepture in chains. He’d had a strong face and desperate eyes. He’d looked like a Christian being dragged to the lions, like someone who’d been told he was going to die.
    And maybe he had been. Maybe the war was that close.
    Maybe they’d sent him here intending to throw him away.
    A boy, I told my classmates. The new hostage was a boy. About our age. I skipped the part about him being dragged in in chains. Thandi looked at my flushed face and waggled her eyebrows suggestively. But she was wrong. There was nothing of romance in the way I thought about this boy, though I thought about him all the time.

    â€œAre you thinking about him?” said Xie from nowhere.
    I jumped. “Sorry, what?”
    â€œCareful,” she said. “Don’t break the curds.”
    We were working together in the dairy. I was straining whey. Xie was heating pitchers of water and lowering them into the big tray of raw milk, to warm it gently and thereby nourish the friendly bacteria that would turn the milk to cheese.
    The day was hot, and the dairy was positively steaming, and sweat was dripping down Da-Xia’s nose. From the solar injector to the milk tray, she carried pitcher after steaming pitcher. I stopped for a moment to watch the blue enamelware moving like a bead on an invisible thread—that smooth, despite its weight. Xie’s rolled-up sleeves bunched above her elbows. Muscles ran like tapestry cords through her forearms and wrists.
    She flicked a look over her shoulder. “Greta?” Her hair was done in the tiny, glossy braids traditional to the royalty of the Himalayan slopes. One of the braids had fallen forward and slashed across her face like a wound. “Now you’re staring into space,” she said.
    And Thandi drawled from the doorway, “Who are you, and what have you done with Greta?” The screendoor whapped shut behind her as she came in with a pail of milk.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll focus.”
    â€œOh, don’t, please.” Xie smiled. “It’s a rare treat to see you dreamy. We can spare a batch of cheese.”
    â€œSpeak for yourself,” said Thandi. But Xie just smiled at her and pushed the slashing hair back behind one ear.
    Dreamy. I was not dreaming. I was thinking about the new hostage screaming—about me shocked and falling to my knees. I would not say this to Thandi. I had wanted to say it to Xie, but constantly monitored as we were, it was hard to find a good place in which to hide such a large conversation.
    Outside I could hear Grego and Han laughing together. They were meant to be straining cream, but it sounded livelier than that. Grego was funny, but he told jokes in precise deadpan, as if they were engineering instructions.