Chaya had gone along willingly, believing without doubt that they would be released afterward. A Great Knight would keep his word, wouldn't he? But it seemed that Great Knights were not always what Chaya had dreamed they would be, and his ideals of honor and obedience and service to a greater good were maybe after all just men. Men who had done great things and sworn their allegiances and fought for the great King, but also men with flaws and fears, men who made mistakes. Who died like any other man.

Chaya could hear the other prisoners puzzling out a way to escape, but he remained kneeling in a corner of the cell, torn. He should help them, maybe; but he felt, somehow, still, that he should obey the commands he'd been given, and some part of him thought that perhaps if he'd been told to stay in the cell that that was what he should do. Except that he didn't want to starve down here, and it wasn't fair to any of them, and what did you do when you were given a command that was wrong? He didn't understand, didn't know how to react to that.

The Great Knights could be wrong. He'd sworn to serve them, but he'd sworn to do the right thing too, and if he was given an order that just wasn't the right thing, or if he was given conflicting orders ... maybe it was his duty to decide for himself what the right thing was. Could he do that? Could he do that, when often enough he didn't know what the right thing even was?

Did anyone else know for sure what the right thing was? He'd always thought other people did know, and obeyed the commands of those above him, because they knew what was best. But what if they didn't know for sure, like him, and were just guessing?

The cell doors swung open. Chaya got to his feet, grateful to have a distraction from the rather disturbing train of thought he'd gotten into. He'd go out and try to do the right thing, and worry more about it later, as long as he was around to do it later.