The Inner Circle: Holy Spirit Read Online Free PDF Page B

assess the situation,
Seteal started giving orders as to how they should proceed. A
moment later, she watched as the others dashed down alleyways
whilst empty, and around houses as the tenants turned away.
    ‘ You’re almost there,’ she
murmured. Turn right, she attempted to say, but her lips remained
sealed.
    ‘ Seteal,’ El-i-miir urged by her
ear. ‘What now?’
    Focusing on her lips and tongue, Seteal tried to
speak and failed yet again. A gathering of an’hadoans would soon
turn the corner behind the others. If she couldn’t make herself
speak they would most certainly get caught.
    ‘ Turn right.’ At last the words
squeezed their way along the thread between herself and her
body.
    Flooded with relief, Seteal watched Ilgrin and
El-i-miir hurry around the side of the building seconds before the
an’hadoans came around the corner. She caught herself wondering
what had happened to the connection, but as she continued giving
directions thereafter everything went on working as it should. ‘You
see the valley wall?’
    ‘ What about it?’ El-i-miir’s face
scrunched up in consternation.
    ‘ You’ve got about three minutes to
reach it without being seen,’ Seteal urged. ‘Run.’
    ‘ I couldn’t,’ El-i-miir said
through gritted teeth.
    ‘ You have--’ Seteal failed to
produce the final word, once again feeling the strange detachment
from her body.
    ‘ Come on,’ Ilgrin threw Seteal
over his shoulder and grabbed El-i-miir’s hand to sprint across the
open plane.
    Realising that her task was complete and she was
only serving as a burden in slowing the others down, Seteal
snatched at the strand of spirit attaching herself to her body but
found that she couldn’t get a proper hold of it. Terrified by the
detachment, she swooped over the body atop Ilgrin’s shoulder,
begging it to accept her back, but it wouldn’t. She screamed
inwardly for it to let her in and yet her body did not respond in
the slightest.
    Once Ilgrin and El-i-miir reached the side of the
basin, they found the stairway that Seteal had spotted earlier and
rested her at the base. ‘You enjoy your free ride?’ Ilgrin
panted.
    Seteal snatched at the canvas and felt feverishly
along its surface until she found her Way. She found the strand
she’d been looking for just as it attempted to weave itself back
into reality without her. Seteal snatched it up before it could
escape and spiralled down its length to plunge back into her
body.
    ‘ Yes, thank you,’ she replied to
Ilgrin without giving further explanation.
    ‘ It would’ve been easier if you’d
carry your own weight,’ the silt grumbled.
    ‘ Are you okay?’ El-i-miir narrowed
her eyes.
    ‘ I’m fine.’ Seteal rose to her
feet and dusted off her dress. ‘It doesn’t look like you were fast
enough,’ she said, putting a hand against her brow so that she
could gaze across the plane where a mass of an’hadoans had taken up
chase.
    ‘ That’s impossible,’ Ilgrin
moaned. ‘Nobody saw us. I was certain of it.’
    ‘ You go.’ Seeol puffed out his
feathers and flicked his wings at the others. ‘I’ll take care of
this.’ The bird narrowed his eyes and marched several handswidths
across the ice to face their pursuers.
    ‘ I’ll come back,’ Ilgrin assured
Seteal as he tore off his cloak, wrapped El-i-miir in his arms and
leapt into the sky.
    ‘ I’m getting really sick of you
doing that,’ Seteal barked after the pair. ‘Torrid,’ she cursed,
turning to run up the stairs.
    ‘ Stop following us,’ Seeol’s
feeble challenge floated up as the an’hadoans came within a few
strides of the basin wall. Seteal shook her head, already panting
as she took the steps two at a time. Moments later the elf owl
zipped through the air and landed unsteadily on her shoulder. ‘They
didn’t listen.’
    ‘ Stop,’ a man shouted. Seteal
didn’t stop. ‘I said stop.’ The an’hadoan leapt at Seteal’s foot
but tripped and fell backward into the upcoming throng of