Chapter Text
Kaladin trudged down the corridor. He had a meeting with one of the quartermasters soon. The hallway was empty, just more rock. Then he heard someone behind him. There hadn’t been anyone there before. He spun, moving into a fighting crouch, and the Sylblade appeared in his hand. He expected to see an attacker. Instead standing in front of him was Kara. Relief flooded through him. He'd had a creeping fear in the back of his mind all week that she was dead. Her hair was still dyed black, and her eyes were a deep violet. She was dressed like a laundress with an apron over a loose dress and a sturdy glove. She looked exhausted. Slowly she raised her hands to show that she was unarmed. “Please, Kaladin. I’m not here to hurt you.”
Right the sword. The Sylblade evaporated. Syl seemed just as surprised as he was. He just stared at Kara. “Are you alright?”
She laughed, but it was edged with hysteria. “Sure. I guess so. Exhausted, but all right.” He processed her words. No injuries. No claim of being captured. That was not what he had expected her to say. Shock rocked through him. She had been lying then. She seemed to be moving around the tower of her own accord so she had left for some reason. If that was true, then she had been playing him the whole time. “What are you doing here?” he said, fury dripping from his voice.
Kara flinched, but stood resolute. “I’m here to explain.”
She was here to explain? He wanted to shout back that he didn’t want to hear any explanation from her, but at the same time he was equally desperate to hear what she had to say. His desperation for answers won out. “Explain what exactly? That you’re a spy? That you have been lying to us this whole time?”
“I know what it looks like Kaladin, but I didn’t write those letters.”
His fury paused. If she hadn't written those letters, why had she left? “Are you saying that you aren’t a spy?”
Kara winced. “In the interest of being fully honest with you...kind of.”
It was such a frustratingly Kara thing to say. If he hadn’t been completely enraged with her, he would have laughed. Kaladin glared at her. “What is that supposed to mean? How can you be kind of a spy?”
“Look, I won’t deny that I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, but it’s not what you think. Kaladin, I need you to listen to me. I didn’t write those letters. I haven’t been reporting on Bridge Four or you or really anyone. I answered a couple of questions, but that was it. I didn’t come to Urithiru to spy on you, but I may have also been working for someone besides the Windrunners. Because of that, I have some very sensitive information that you and Dalinar need to know.”
“Working with someone with goals contrary to ours?”
He watched Kara take a deep breath before she said, “In some ways, yes.”
Kaladin’s eyes hardened. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. You saved my life, well I am returning the favor. Leave now before I change my mind. I don’t want to see you again and if I do, don’t think I won’t hesitate to throw you in prison.”
“Kaladin, please,” she begged, falling to her knees.
Kaladin’s fury broke a little. He had never seen Kara beg for anything. Generally she was proud almost to a fault. He looked down at her and all he could see was Kara. She didn’t seem like a spy. She seemed like the person who had become his friend, but she wasn’t. He wasn’t even sure who she was any more. He couldn’t afford to have her betray him. He summoned Syl again as a blade and pointed it at her. He needed her to understand. Kara scrambled back, looking shocked.
Kaladin said quietly, “Leave now and don’t come back.” It hurt to say it, but he couldn’t trust her.
She stared at him for a few moments, looking almost devastated, and finally she picked herself up off the ground. “Alright,” she whispered. “I’ll go. But think before you decide what I am, Kaladin.”
Then she turned and walked away. Apparently, she trusted him enough to turn her back on him.
Kaladin watched Kara go and then collapsed against the wall. He wasn’t sure how to feel. He wanted to feel relieved that Kara was alive and apparently unharmed, but he also felt an immense sense of betrayal. She had been lying to him since the beginning, but looking at her all he could see was Kara. She had seemed so sincere and when she had gotten down on her knees to beg him to listen...He had almost given in then. It was hard to imagine Kara begging for anything. What could she even want from him now?
He hadn’t been able to bring himself to arrest her, not after she had saved him in Tashikk. Maybe that had been a setup too, but from what Skar had said she had seemed to be in plenty of danger. He didn’t know what to believe anymore. He didn’t know what was true and what was a lie. How could someone be “kind of” a spy?
“Kaladin? Are you alright?” Syl asked.
“No,” he replied. He wasn’t alright. He was still trying to reorient himself to this new reality where Kara was perhaps his enemy. “Why would she come back, Syl? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know, Kaladin, if she didn’t write those letters, then I don’t even know why she disappeared in the first place. I don’t know, but I also don’t think she wants to hurt you.”
“Why?”
“You didn’t see her in Tashikk when I told her what happened. That wasn’t a show.”
“But it all makes sense if it was a setup. What is the likelihood that her brother just happened to be there?”
“I don’t know, Kaladin. I think that’s a question that only Kara can answer.”
That was probably true. He hoped that she would listen to him. He hoped that she would leave Urithiru, but there was another small, foolish part of him that was terrified at the thought of that exact thing.