The Weight of Summoning

The first thing Rei noticed was the silence.

Not theater silence. This was cathedral silence. The kind that pressed against your eardrums like velvet.

"How peculiar," she murmured under her breath.

The second thing she noticed was stone beneath her knees. Ancient stone. Silver inlay caught candlelight like captured starfire. She was bowing—prostrate, actually—her forehead nearly kissing intricate carved patterns.

When had she knelt?

The thought struck like discordant music. She remembered taking her final bow as Prospero. Accepting modest applause from Sakura High's small audience. Then—

This.

Rei lifted her head with deliberate grace. The movement felt monumental. Like defying some invisible conductor's baton.

She was inside a cathedral that belonged in European art museums. Pillars soared toward shadows, carved with such detail they seemed to breathe in flickering light. Stained glass windows—thirty feet tall at least—painted rainbow prayers across walls draped with banners of obvious wealth and ancient authority.

And everywhere, hundreds of people knelt in reverence to her.

Knights wore armor like liquid mercury, heads bowed, swords planted ceremonially. Nobles draped in robes worth small fortunes. Priests clothed in white and gold, their staffs emanating impossible radiance.

"Either I've stumbled into the most elaborate production ever staged," she whispered, her voice barely audible, "or..."

At the cathedral's heart sat a man who could only be an emperor. His crown wasn't theatrical prop but genuine artifact—ancient, powerful, set with gems that pulsed with inner fire. Silver threaded through golden hair spoke of age, but his presence commanded the space with tangible authority.

He too knelt before her.

"Rise, Hero of Light," he intoned. His voice carried perfectly through designed acoustics. "Rise, and grace us with salvation's countenance."

Hero?

The word resonated through her like struck bell. Rei's mind scrambled for rational explanation. Last memory: bowing on stage. Current reality: impossible grandeur and imperial address.

Her body responded without conscious direction. Rising with fluid elegance that felt simultaneously foreign and natural. Around her, the assembly lifted their heads in unison.

Their faces revealed everything.

Hope. Desperate, drowning hope. Some wept openly. Others gazed with expressions bordering worship.

These people believe I'm someone significant. Someone I most certainly am not.

"My lady," came a voice to her right. A woman in pristine armor approached—perhaps twenty-five, athletic, eyes holding that particular mixture of relief and joy reserved for resurrection moments. "Welcome home."

Home.

Something deep in Rei's chest responded to the word. Recognition without understanding. Her analytical mind immediately rejected the sensation.

"I..." Her voice carried unfamiliar authority here. "I confess confusion. Where exactly am I?"

Unease rippled through the congregation like disturbed water. The armored woman—Captain, Rei's mind supplied inexplicably—exchanged meaningful glances with the emperor.

How could I possibly know her rank?

"You stand in the Grand Cathedral of Eynian, my lady. Within the Imperial Palace's heart." The woman's voice layered careful diplomacy over genuine concern. "This marks your formal return ceremony."

"Return from what circumstances?"

The question hung like incense smoke. Hope began warring with fear across the captain's features.

The emperor rose with practiced dignity. Despite obvious age, he moved like someone who'd once danced with swords.

"You vanished a year past, child," he said, approaching with measured steps. "Following the Battle of Sovereign's Fall, after your greatest triumph, you simply... disappeared. We searched exhaustively. When conventional means failed, we turned to ancient summoning rites, praying we might call you back to us."

Summoning rites. The phrase triggered something—not memory precisely, but echo. Light beyond comprehension. Being drawn through impossible space. Reality reshaping around consciousness.

Dear heaven. This is actually happening.

"And it succeeded," she observed quietly.

"So it appears." The emperor’s smile carried warmth tempered by strain. "Though you seem... altered. Tell me, child, do you recall anything? Our campaigns? Our strategies? The oaths you swore?"

Rei searched desperately for any trace of described memories. Nothing emerged. Only high school theater and solitary evenings in an apartment money had furnished but presence had never warmed.

"I remember a stage," she said carefully. "Lights. I was performing, then..." She gestured helplessly at the cathedral's grandeur. "This."

The following silence felt deafening. She watched hope extinguish in dozens of faces, replaced by confusion, fear, and—most troubling—suspicion.

"And thus the audience realizes their leading lady has forgotten her lines," she said softly, barely above a whisper.

"A stage?" The new voice cut like tempered steel. A man in elaborate robes approached with movements carrying theatrical precision that made Rei's instincts sharpen. Unlike others' confusion, his expression remained coldly calculating. "How... illuminating."

"Ah. Enter the antagonist," she murmured, her voice so quiet only the nearest nobles might catch it. "Right on schedule."

"Chancellor Aldric," the emperor warned.

But Aldric was already speaking, voice pitched for maximum cathedral coverage. "Forgive me, Your Majesty, but this development raises certain... concerns. The woman before us bears our Hero's visage, speaks with our Hero's voice, yet claims no memory of the deeds that forged her legend. Instead, she speaks of stages and performances—of artifice and pretense."

The implication struck the assembly like physical force. Hope curdled into suspicion.

How refreshingly unsubtle.

"You question my authenticity," Rei observed, surprised by her voice's steadiness.

Aldric's smile could have etched glass. "I suggest the situation demands careful evaluation. Our summoning ritual should have returned our Hero's complete essence—memories, abilities, experiences intact. If instead we have recalled a mere... performer... then we face considerably more complex circumstances."

"A mere performer," she whispered, just loud enough for those closest to hear. "As though that's somehow lesser."

"Chancellor." The emperor’s voice carried geological weight. Even Aldric fell silent. "The Hero stands before us, returned through our most sacred rites. Whatever changes she may have endured, whatever trials affected her memories, she remains our summoned champion."

"With profound respect, Your Majesty," Aldric replied, maintaining just enough deference to avoid outright insubordination, "how can we achieve certainty? The Hero who departed could shatter mountains with gestures, command armies through presence alone, inspire absolute loyalty through sheer force of character. If this woman possesses none of those capabilities, remembers none of that wisdom..."

"Shatter mountains?" she murmured, her eyes widening slightly. "Good gracious. What manner of person were they expecting?"

The emperor’s jaw tensioned. "Then we shall allow her time to recover those abilities. Memory loss following such trauma isn't unprecedented."

"Time." Aldric's inflection suggested time was their scarcest resource. "Your Majesty, Sovereign forces mass in eastern territories. Our scouts report movements suggesting major offensive action within the month. Can we afford to await memories that may never return?"

There it is. The ticking clocks. These people don't merely want their Hero returned—they require her. Urgently.

Political reality crystallized around Rei like forming ice. They'd summoned her back through desperate magical means, but the Hero they'd received wasn't the one they'd expected. Now authenticity questions threatened whatever careful plans they'd constructed around her return.

"What do you propose?" the emperor asked, though his tone suggested he anticipated the answer.

"A trial," Aldric stated simply. "Let her prove identity through deed rather than declaration. If she truly is our returned Hero, surely her abilities will manifest under appropriate... pressure."

Pressure. Such a delicate euphemism.

"And should they not manifest?" Rei inquired, suspecting she wouldn't appreciate the response.

Captain Kira answered, voice heavy with regret. "Then imperial law would compel us to attempt the summoning anew. The ritual cannot be performed while another occupies the Hero's designated space."

The euphemism was diplomatically phrased. The meaning remained crystal clear.

They would execute me.

"However," the emperor interjected quickly, "such a trial would be entirely voluntary. None can compel the Hero to prove herself through combat. The choice remains yours alone."

"Voluntary. Certainly," she said softly, her words carrying a sardonic edge that only a few could hear. "Except refusal brands me coward or impostor, leaving me to exist on imperial charity while their world burns."

Rei surveyed the cathedral again. Some faces showed sympathy, others calculation, several barely contained hostility. But beneath everything, she sensed something else—desperation. These people weren't merely hoping for their Hero's return. They needed it. Whatever crisis had driven them to attempt such summoning was urgent enough to make murder an acceptable cost of failure.

Welcome to the theater of politics. Where every performance is life or death.

"And should I refuse?" she asked.

"Then you would remain as our honored guest," the emperor replied carefully. "Though without some demonstration of your capabilities, convincing the populace that their champion has truly returned would prove... challenging."

Honored guest. A rather elegant term for prisoner.

The political reality was brutally apparent. Refuse the trial: branded coward or fake. Accept it: likely death against trained killers. Either path led to destruction.

"What manner of trial?"

Aldric's smile could have drawn blood. "Single combat. Ancient tradition demands that when a champion's identity faces question, they prove themselves through trial by arms. Defeat a warrior of the Empire's choosing, and your authenticity becomes unquestionable."

"And upon defeat?"

"Then we have our answer."

"At least his honesty is refreshing," she said under her breath.

The cathedral waited in perfect silence. Rei closed her eyes, processing the impossible situation. Fourteen days to live. Trial by combat against professional warriors. Death awaiting failure.

But standing there, surrounded by hundreds whose hopes and fears pressed against her like physical weight, she recalled something her drama instructor had once said: "In theater, there are no second chances. You must believe the lie while revealing the truth."

Perhaps this is simply a different kind of performance. A different stage entirely.

And if death awaits regardless, why not make it memorable?

When she opened her eyes, her voice carried the authority she'd learned to project from intimate stages to grand auditoriums.

"How long do I have for preparation?"

"Fourteen days," Aldric said, and his tone suggested he relished the prospect.

"Fourteen days to discover how to avoid dying spectacularly," she said softly, her voice carrying dark humor. "How delightfully challenging."

Rei nodded with deliberate composure. "Then I accept."

The words echoed through the cathedral's vast space, final and binding. Around her, expressions shifted—some relieved, others calculating, several openly predatory.

But as she spoke, she noticed something that gave her pause. In the great stained-glass windows, afternoon light cast patterns that seemed to move independent of any earthly source. For one moment, colored glass formed shapes—symbols meaningless to her conscious mind yet somehow familiar to something deeper.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, she thought, remembering Prospero's words. And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

But perhaps this wasn't sleep. Perhaps this was awakening.

Or perhaps I'm about to die in the most elaborate fashion imaginable.

The cathedral held its breath, waiting to see what the girl who fell between worlds would become.

Outside, thunder rumbled in cloudless sky. In eastern provinces, something ancient stirred in response to the summoning that had just accepted its first challenge.

The game, Rei thought with grim appreciation, is indeed afoot.

Pity I haven't learned the rules yet.