The Apathetic Mage Loves Cats

Chapter 25: Melan

Present time

Silence hung in the air as we struggled to comprehend what Iban had just said. The death of his master hung dry and heavy, enough so that Caiden moved closer to me in comfort, his shoulder brushing mine in as if thinking about that death brought up some uncomfortable thoughts of his own.

"And "him"? Who was that?" I finally asked, hoping to break the tension that I didn't want to be in. Iban continued to stare into the fire before his gaze slowly lifted to mine.

"After Zing died, I went back to our house and searched the place. Of course, the humans had ransacked before I arrived; hoping to steal whatever notes Zing had and use it for themselves. I had no idea what they had taken or even what Zing deemed important. It would take another couple of days before I would even find the stash of notes he had beneath the floorboard of our bed. They were mostly gibberish to me, but I would keep them until I found my second mage who was able to read them accurately enough. He couldn't read everything, since even he was restricted by the language that Zing wrote and his own findings. However, he could read a lot of them." Iban turned to stare at me, "The ones that you read the other day were some prophecies that my second mage had deciphered from Zing. He was also the one who deciphered some new formulas to allow us to create new familiars, like me." Iban sounded almost proud as he talked about his second master. Making me wonder if sometime down the line if he would talk about me like that as well.

"So, Romand told me that humans couldn't actually create familiars. Does that mean...?" I trailed off, letting Iban finish my sentence.

"He's right. Humans probably tried to read some of the incoherent notes that they stole from Zing years ago, but they would've been incompletely and utter nonsense. And even if they did manage to read them... I'm not sure they would understand. Because only demons can create demons." Akan nodded in response, but the look on his face told me there was definitely something more to this person than they were letting on.

"So, this other person that Zing was referring to... the "him" was your second master?" Caiden asked. Iban shook his head.

"No, but he was important to our operation." Iban then looked over at Akan, who was looking down at the fire, his gaze distant. Akan took a deep breath and looked up at us.

"His second master was Melan; he was able to create a plan based on the notes that Zing left behind. He wasn't particularly extroverted, but people listened to what he had to say. He became a makeshift king of sorts." Akan took another deep breath. "He was also... my brother." My brows scrunched up in confusion. I was already pretty startled, I will admit, learning that demons could look like humans. But to think that they had familial relationships was entirely something new.

"Brother?" I asked, hoping he would continue. When he did not, I asked some more, "I didn't even realize that demons could have siblings, but you had a brother?" I was trying to be gentle because I realized he referred to his brother in the past tense, but I was extremely curious to push Akan to tell the story, especially because he wasn't saying anything for a long while. Luckily, Akan nodded and continued.

"He was incredibly smart. When Iban first came to our home looking for him, I thought that he was trying to get Melan to come with him to do dirty work. But Melan didn't mind. Iban trusted him to do something important, and Melan loved the attention. He was the one to figure out that Zing had planned just about everything related to Iban and his future. It was as if he could see into the future. We still don't know how he did it but it's like he knew centuries upon centuries of knowledge." Akan shook his head in disbelief. "He even planned his own death."

"His own death?" Caiden asked incredulously, "But, how? Why didn't he...?" Iban shook his head in a shrugging sort of way.

"It wasn't like he knew exactly what was going to happen and when. But he knew relatively when he was going to die, and what I would do next. Which was to seek out Melan. He even planned for both of us to meet. Well, I'm not sure if he had planned out everything to the exact detail because Melan refused to reveal everything he had discovered. Regardless, Zing knew we needed to get together and create a group that would unite to look for "him". That is how Akan and I got acquainted." Iban looked over at Akan who nodded in response. Akan though, still looked sad to discuss his brother. I glanced over at Caiden, who was watching Akan in pity. And, despite knowing that it was an insensitive question, I couldn't help but want to ask it. I, of course, felt some sort of sympathy for both of the people in front of me because they had lost someone so important to them, but I was more curious about the information than I was worried about their mental stability as much as Caiden might be upset about me for it.