What It Does
A whip of fire, drawn in a line and let go where the line says. It reaches where the hand points, and the reach is the whole argument — the fire lands before the other man has decided the fight has started.
The Cost
Circle 2 · Fire · Exchange: breath — casting time one round. The Exchange is the breath rung on the ladder in The Veil: the spell costs exactly as much as the spell is, and the meter pays the budget, not the cost.
The Failure
The line holds the shape a beat too long, and the fire keeps the tension — the lash comes back to the hand that cast it.
In Stories
The skirmish spell of the fire school; the one a journeyman casts when the line is broken and the ground is still yours.
The door's scale anchor is Ignathar, who casts it the way a hand casts a shadow — which is how a reader knows the shape of the thing, because the dragon does not think about it.