Kein brushed Christof's hands away and Looked at the mark closely. "It looks as it always has, Brothers," he said relaxing his shoulders.

“The tutors taught me to read the marks to tell ancestry-" I started to say and Evan cut me off.

"We don't remember this lesson," he said stubbornly.

I thought back to that day when Runen and his Brothers taught me to read the marks. My men hadn't been paying attention. They had been very busy, but why?

Bane realized why as he passed the linen wraps to the other men.

“Nu-reeh's bin broke one day. We were very busy picking up the ore before she arrived with the next load."

Evan argued with him. He didn't understand how they didn't have the same Knowledge I did while they were bonded to me. Christof's explanation was probably accurate.

“Ciara is human. The bond doesn't work right for her. How many times did we say that while it was happening? I think that explains this also," he said sitting down and motioning me over.

The other men discussed and agreed. Bonding with me had been odd. They didn't have access to everything I knew, I doled it out slowly with memories. Apparently I never thought of this lesson when we were up there.

"Show me the mark for my human breeder a generation ago, please," Christof said gently.

I pointed it out and they all looked at it. The rest of the Brothers wanted to be checked. I found the mark on Evan that denoted a slave in the third generation, but not human. We had already been aware of that, though. No one else had human breeders, at least not three generations back.

“Was she happy?" Christof asked quietly taking my hand and pulling me down next to him. "Was she harmed or beaten? Did she miss the family she was taken from on Earth?"

No one had an answer for any of that. The men sat down around us murmuring.

I ventured a guess, "I imagine she was treated well. It wasn't that long ago and she was healthy enough to have a child..."

Christof didn't look comforted, he Looked angry. The mood spread into the other men and now they were all angry. Damien started pacing and I feared for the nearest wall. Their tempers had hold of them.

Suddenly, they were calm. Some thought had righted them. It was so odd watching the internal conversations from the outside.

I wondered why they couldn't just say what they were thinking out loud. Probably a lifetime of communicating this way made it easier, I assumed. It had seemed very intrusive to me, but they didn't seem to mind it.

Evan stood up suddenly. He Looked at every Brother before disappearing into the room they kept their clothes in. A moment later he returned with a blue cloth bag the size of a Lunch bag.

The bag was a curiosity and obviously had something of some weight in it. I gasped when I saw the front. It had their symbol stitched onto it, but beneath it was a symbol I recognized as my name. I'd never seen this bag before.

Evan handed the bag to me and sat down in his chair. "We have wanted to give this to you, but we had not chosen the time yet," he said by way of explanation.

Looking around I wasn't sure what they wanted me to do with it.

“You do not need to keep it in water," Damien told me, "no one will steal from you in our home."