The Burned Rogue Book

Chapter Four: Colum the Great

Chapter Four: Colum the Great

I did call my mom. She was frantic, and when I told her where I was, she went quiet. I could almost see her thinking hard about my future. My mind was reeling as I tried to figure out what I was going to say, and I completely forgot about asking of my dad. I had powers, apparently, that I didn’t know how to control. By the time I remembered about my father, my phone died.

Of course it did.

And oh, how I chucked it at the ground.

But brick floors don’t break Nokias. Nokias break brick floors.

Which reminds me—when I got to the red dorms, I was astounded. There was only one open room; all the other rooms were being used as storage. There was a laundry room, which I was grateful for, but that was it. Gair didn’t leave me much to explore. He just dropped me off and I entered my room.

My room was actually very…red. The walls were painted red, and the queen bed had red and orange covers. The frame was a black metal, and there was a window with sheer red curtains on the opposite side of the door. The floors were brick.

There was a familiarity to the room. The smell reminded me of something good; although whatever that good thing was, I couldn’t tell. It felt like I was coming home from a long day, even though I was very far from home.

I heard a knock on my door before I could get too comfortable.

“Who is”—

The door opened before I gave permission, and Atlas walked in, shutting the door behind him. He looked cleaned up, although his hair was still messy. He had butterfly stitches on his cheek and by his eyebrow.

“Are you liking your accommodations?” he asked.

“I didn’t give you permission to come in,” I said.

He shrugged. “I saved your life a few times, brought you here, where you’re safe…” he gave me a sly look, “and you’re getting mad because I walked into your room?”

I gave up. “What is it?”

He sighed and gave me a look that said he sympathized. “You probably have a lot of questions, hm?” He walked closer to me.

“Well, seeing as to how virtually none of my questions have been answered…”

He walked past me and sat on the bed.

“You can ask me your questions. I can’t guarantee I’ll have all the answers, but…”

“But…?”

Atlas met my gaze with his dark eyes. “I know what it’s like to be in your shoes.”

Something changed when he said that. I feel like with those words he broke down walls I didn’t know I had. So I sat next to him on the bed.

“Explain to me the tattoos,” I said.

He thought. “It starts with the patrons, or the Elders. Each elder is a patron of each house. The man in the blue is the patron of the Blue House, or blue dorms. That’s what I am. The Guardians are blue. We’re in charge of finding others who haven’t discovered their Fires yet—their powers. The Greens have the tattoos on their legs, and they’re the Runners. They tend to be messengers, although they’re really good in a fight.” He said that as if he’d been whooped by a Runner before. “Then there are the Forgers, the people in the purple dorms. They are the ones with tattoos on the backs of their hands. They create most of our weapons. The Seekers are the yellows. They team up with the Runners and scope out areas, usually if there are going to be battles or anything. The Seekers are also our spies, and they have tattoos on their chests. They’d be like children of Athena, if we believed in Greek gods.”