Dragon Soot

http://eredel.deviantart.com/art/Burn-My-Shadow-146540873

The spicy tang of [something] oil smoke peppers her nose, but she can see from the blackening burlap smoke curling from her first torch she needs to finish. Wendle’s witching magic and Rhoda’s sorcery drew from the same [source] as this irregular magic. But because they were regular, because they followed rules and rhythms, because they held order and used patterns, they differed more from what Morgan now did than the differed from each other. Earlier in the afternoon the [tribe] [shaman] had prepared ten packets. His acolyte selected five of those blindly from a basket and loaded them heedlessly into identical satchels. Then a tribeswoman—picked by selecting a short straw—chose at least three and as many as all five of the satchels to attach them inside Morgan’s cloak. Morgan reaches inside her cloak and discovers four. Thinking a small amount of struggle might benefit the ritual, she one-handedly unclaspes the satchel furthest from her grasp and pulls out the packet. Dragon soot.

Morgan’s heart lurches like a standing horse to full gallop.

This is the risk of Irregular magic. Alone, the ten ingredient’s ranged from inert to catalytic but prepared in the Irregular way the effort guaranteed the normally useless beach sand would be slightly effective and the always deadly dragon soot would be short of [100%]. The ameleorating effect of the ritual ought to protect Morgan from the poisoness soot.

“Viy protect me,” Morgan says. She wonders lightly if she’s just botched the spell as she inhales the grainy red ashes.

335 words on day 615