Free Serpent Mage by Margaret Weis

came to stand by his side, her hand on his arm. My father gathered his beard in great handfuls and pulled on it, bringing tears to his eyes. My mother yanked on her side whiskers.
    I did the same. Alake was comforting Sabia, who had nearly passed out.
    “We should take her to her room,” I said.
    “No. I won't go.” Sabia lifted her chin. “Someday I will be queen, and I must know how to handle situations like this.”
    I looked at her with surprise and new respect. Alake and I had always considered Sabia weak and delicate. I'd seen her turn pale at the sight of blood running from a piece of undercooked meat. But, faced with a crisis, she was coming through it like a dwarven soldier. I was proud of her. Breeding will tell, they say.
    We peeped cautiously out the window.
    The physician was speaking to the king.
    “Your Majesty, this messenger has refused all easeful medicine in order that he may deliver his message. I beg you listen to him.”
    Eliason removed his mantle at once and knelt beside the dying elf.
    “You are in the presence of your king,” said Eliason, keeping his voice calm and level. He took hold of the man's hand that was clutching feebly at the air. “Deliver your message, then go with all honor to the One and find rest.”
    The elf's bloody eye sockets turned in the direction of the voice. His words came forth slowly, with many pauses to draw pain-filled breaths.
    “The Masters of the Sea bid me say thus: We will allow you to build the boats to carry your people to safety provided you give us in payment the eldest girl-child from each royal household. If you agree to our demand, place your daughtersin a boat and cast them forth upon the Goodsea. If you do not, what we have done to this elf and to the human fisherman and to the dwarven shipbuilders is only a foretaste of the destruction we will bring upon your people. We give you two cycles to make your decision.'”
    “But why? Why our daughters?” Eliason cried, grasping the wounded man by the shoulders and almost shaking him.
    “I … do not know,” the elf gasped, and died.
    Alake drew away from the window. Sabia shrank back against the wall. I climbed down off the footstool before I fell.
    “We shouldn't have heard that,” Alake said in a hollow voice.
    “No,” I agreed. I was cold and hot at the same time and I couldn't stop shaking.
    “Us? They want us?” Sabia whispered, as if she couldn't believe it.
    We stared at each other, helpless, wondering what to do.
    “The window,” I warned, and Alake closed it up with her magic.
    “Our parents will never agree to such a thing,” she said briskly. “We mustn't let them know we know. It would grieve them terribly. We'll go back to Sabia's room and act like nothing's happened.”
    I cast a dubious glance at Sabia, who was as white as curdled milk, and who seemed about to collapse on the spot.
    “I can't lie!” she protested. “I've never lied to my father.”
    “You don't have to lie,” Alake snapped, her fear making her sharp-edged and brittle. “You don't have to say anything. Just keep quiet.”
    She yanked poor Sabia out of her corner and, together, she and I helped the elven maid down the shimmering coral corridors. After a few false turns, we made it to Sabia's room. None of us spoke on the way.
    All of us were thinking of the elf we'd seen, of the torture he'd endured. My insides clenched in fear; a horrid taste came into my mouth. I didn't know why I wasso frightened. As Alake had said, my parents would never permit the serpents to take me.
    It was, I know now, the voice of the One speaking to me, but I was refusing to listen.
    We entered Sabia's room—thankfully, no servants were about—and shut the door behind us. Sabia sank down on the edge of her bed, twisting her hands together. Alake stood glaring angrily out a window, as if she'd like to go and hit someone.
    In the silence, I could no longer avoid hearing the One. And I knew, looking at their faces, that the One