THE SAINT AND THE SINNER

They called him a Saint. He brought light to us. He covered the world in light. And he was everywhere. His face was carved in stone, engraved on currency and painted on sheets that were hanging everywhere around. The people called him a hero. I was probably the only one who knew the truth. He was just Cozbi. A broken boy. I knew him.

“Only 15 Coins for the Saint’s painting! Any takers?!” a seller with a round belly yelled over the city square. He rubbed his stomach wearing a wide fake smile, ready to jump at anyone who would show even the slightest bit of interest. Sweat from the scorching sun dripped down his beige skin. Not many passer-byers heard him. Many citizens learned to ignore merchants like him, deeming them frauds. 

A man with a yellow beard and a sizable hat turned his head and stopped in his step. The seller’s grin widened and he pulled the yellow bearded man closer to the painting.

Down at the carpenter’s stand, two older men started a brawl. One of them, who was missing eyebrows, was waving around a few sheet white papers while they threw hands at one another. Blood already covered the stone floor, staining the perfect carved images of the Saint.

“This house has been in my family for more than three decades! I have children.” the slimmer man of the two yelled, trying to kick the other man in the shin. Crowd moved away from the spectacle, stopping and exchanging mumbled words to strangers.

“That doesn’t matter! This land belongs to me! See? I have the papers! This land and everything on it belongs to me!” the man with no eyebrows screeched back. A scoff almost escaped past my lips, but I blocked any sound from being heard. The fights were getting hourly in the town square. Many people spent their whole day there.  I turned my attention back to the seller and the man with the yellow beard, who were standing serenely in front of the painting graced with pastel shades of sunny colour, reminding me of a dreamlike state.

“That’s a painting of the Saint?” the man with the yellow beard asked, locking his hands behind his back. His voice was dragged out, but intense. I hid further into the shadows, peaking through the crowd. A man in a cloak similar to mine, was slowly advancing toward the two.

“Surely! The original!” the seller cackled, showing a ray of yellow coloured teeth. Sweat was drenching his big navy shirt. It was a size or two too small.

“The original?” the man with the yellow beard sounded surprised. His eyes wide, imitating a deer.

“The one and only! See the light? It is said it was painted while the Saint brought out the light. The painter was blessed for a whole decade!” 

A new man joined the talk. My heart sped up with fear and maybe even something else. “The real one is in Saint’s house. It’s a fine forgery. However, the scenery is completely incorrect.” He was broad shouldered with a familiar glint in his eyes and taller than the man with the yellow beard, even with the top hat on. I didn’t care about the words he said, even if that meant I was back to page zero with my mission.

“Are you certain?” the yellow bearded man glared at the seller, who waved his hands around as if catching flies, growing nervous.

“This is the original! I swear on the Saint’s light! Who are you to question me?” The seller raised a hand over the new man. Something in the air shifted. The people stopped walking and glanced at the exchange. I let the shadows hide me completely. I was a part of them now, feeling what they felt and knowing what they knew.

“Cozbi is my name.” 

“The Saint!” A cry came from the crowd. They started praying and dropped to their knees. Even the seller tumbled to his knees and kissed the tip of his shoe. He cried for forgiveness. All of them did. Soon, the only one standing was the Saint. I was lucky I shifted into a shadow, blending in with the darkness or he would have seen me.

I took a step back and scoffed. He was no Saint. The feeling of the shadows around me and in my mind were the only thing calming me down. I needed to fix this. The Saint couldn’t see me. I needed to get that painting. I needed to save everyone. 

With only a thought, the shadows took me elsewhere. I wasn’t standing in the corner of the city square anymore. I was in front of his house. Not many knew where it was. I was one with a lot of advantages. That’s why I was the right person to do this job. I knew the truth and I knew the Saint. 

The cream villa was beautiful with ivy climbing over the front, reaching toward the top windows. It made my job easier. I waited until the dusk. The Saint hadn’t come home. He was probably parading around, wickedly handing out empty promises. He was a fraud. No Saint would do what he did. 

I reached the top windows, clinging to the harsh ivy. The windows weren’t locked. That didn’t surprise me. I pushed it open and effortlessly swung my body through it, like a mouse slipping somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be.

 After I was through, I closed it shut and quietly walked to the other side of the room. I entered into the bedchamber. Everything was placed as if he had never lived in the house. The polished mirrors and the rose scented curtains. The bedsheets had a thick layer of dust gathered on top. I quickly escaped the room and entered the corridor. 

The first thing I noticed in the hallway were the many paintings in golden frames. None of them were similar to the one I saw in the town square. A girl in a red dress in one of the paintings seemed familiar to me, but completely unrecognisable. Her face was bright and full of freckles, showcasing toddler’s euphoria. Her cheeks were flushed while her eyes were stuck on the boy beside her. The only thing that made her familiar was her unusual hair.

I felt a shift behind me. My breath caught in my lungs. My hands were in front of me in a quick flash, shifting from dark dancing shadows to my calloused skin. I turned around, straining my neck. A breath of relief left me. It was only a dark raven. It stared at me through beady eyes. I didn’t understand her, but I felt her hurry. I nodded and forced my feet to move away. 

When I reached the staircase, I knew I was at the right place. The power in me moved. It grew. My eyes traveled over the dark blue tapestry and searched until they found the painting above the staircase on the other side. 

The Saint was right. The scenery is completely different. The painting of the seller was located on a beach. This one was also showcasing the power of the Saint. It made the light brighter and eye blinding. It made it into an orb around a small person. The small parts of the painting that weren’t covered by light, were decorated in soft strokes of green and silver. I had what I needed. I knew where the Saint called upon the light.

“Lucretia,” my name was like a lost whisper in the eavesdropping night. My heart stopped, trying to listen if the whisper was going to echo in the empty house again. I didn’t want to look down at the stairs.

“Saint,” I hissed back and pulled my hood off. My moon white and blood red locks fell over my face, but I didn’t want to hide my scar from him.

“Why do you address me like that, Lu?” 

I shrugged. “It is what everyone calls you nowadays.”

“Nevertheless, you know me.”

“That is true. I do. That’s why I know you don’t deserve that title.”

He walked a few stairs higher, stepping into my line of vision. Cozbi stood right under the painting. “Why are you doing this? Are you envious?”

My glare turned the space around us thicker with shadows. “I’m furious. I helped you gain power for the good of the people. We paid the price for it. You’re taking advantage of it and it is not for the good.”

“I was born with the power of light. It was given to me.” His eyes changed. They were filled with something other than light. It was greed. The Cozbi I saw before me, was a reflection in a black mirror of the person he once was.

“I helped you kill, Cozbi. Solely, to make you more powerful. You were supposed to help. You were supposed to change their mind and reshape people. We had a plan.” I remembered it. Everything. The hunting of the four elements and their cries into the night. They haunted me every day, searching for me in the reflected light in the windows of my small cabin. It was one of the bigger reasons why all of the windows were smashed.

“You have the powers of a demon, Lucretia. If people knew of your power, they would call you a Sinner. A Villain. You could never be a Saint.” His words caused fire in me to ignite. The flames licked the insides of me, daring me to snap back at him.

“I don’t want to be a Saint! I never wanted to be Saint. To be a Saint is to be a fraud. I never wanted to deceive people. I wanted to make them better.”

“People don’t need changing. We were wrong.” He shook his head, raising his fists, pressing nails tightly into his soft palms. 

“Have you seen the forests recently? Earth is dying, Cozbi! Because of people! Because of us!”

“We can fix it.” He simply couldn’t listen. He never did. It was as if I was talking to a brick wall.

“I gave you a chance to change their mind. To make them see reason to change their ways and nurture the Earth, instead of taking advantage of it and slowly drenching it of life. People will never stop! Humans are children of the Seven Sins! Doing good is not in their nature! Thus if we want to save life, we need to save Earth. Even if that means ending people.”

He stared at me in disbelief, his crystal eyes changing while my shadows overtook the space. “Do you even hear yourself?”

I took a step back, my shadows moving with me. I knew he could have never understood me. I took another quick look at the painting to make sure I visualized it right. “Are you even listening to me?”

“You want everyone to die!”

“You don’t listen. You don’t understand, because you don’t listen. You don’t even try to understand. Don’t worry. I’ll make it right. You will see. I will make it right.” 

Cozbi was ready to come closer and stop me, but I let my shadows take me away, leaving him to grasp empty air. 

When I appeared in the forest, I stopped for a moment to take a breath. My eyes and my throat burned from the tears I kept from shedding. Shivers ran through my body, waking me up. I needed to hurry up. Even if Cozbi didn’t have powers similar to mine, he had resources to get him where I was. Short breaths escaped my mouth while I noticed the trees around me were glinting in silver light. Even the darkness of the night couldn't take Cozbi’s light out of the pine trees. They glittered with shifting power, causing the night to breathe and live as a creature of magic. My stomach fluttered at the scene before me. It also gave me more motivation to do what was right and not what my heart was whispering in my ear. 

I raised my hands, feeling the darkness flow through me. My veins grew black, while ink-like magic leaked out of my palms and into the air. It grew heavy and thick. The darkness shifted through the trees and drifted away from me. Everything around me was dark, shifting and moving. Shadows around me dancing could have been compared to the feeling of butterflies in the stomach. They made me excited and warm. A shade of red flushed over my cheeks and a giggle escaped my mouth. I heard a whisper of my name in the air again, but the darkness was too thick. I needed to keep my concentration until the darkness covered the whole world. Cozbi gave people life and hope. They called him a Saint. They didn’t know me. They didn’t even know my name. I ended that life and hope. I ended their life to keep the World alive. Because I was the one who had hope. I had hope that people were going to get better. I had hope that someday, people weren’t going to treat Earth like it was theirs, but as something that wasn’t supposed to be owned. Earth is something worth feeling and hearing. Earth is its own living creature. We were just lucky enough to be living with it.

The World came alive when the darkness covered the whole Earth. It sang mellow melodies I had never heard before and I smelled honeyed fumes manifesting around me. A weak smile made its way onto my face. I felt the flutters of wings in my belly subside and I hesitated. Maybe the winged creatures in my stomach were no butterflies at all. What if Cozbi was right? What if I was made to be a Villain? A Sinner? Was I really doing the best thing? 

I pushed through the doubt. It needed to be done. People weren’t going to snap out of the hate and greed that clouded their hearts. I raised my hands above my head and screamed out when I felt the power pulse through my heart. I was letting everything out. All the power Cozbi and I obtained from the ritual we did a long while ago, was finally let out. I knew now how Cozbi felt when he finally let it all out. It was astonishing what darkness could do to light. I turned the world into the night sky, to save it. It was only a shame people weren’t there to see it.