Chapter 74: Red Pavilion
Cebu Colony – City of Salvadora
Early February, Year 6 of the Kareya Doctrine
The clocktower of Salvadora rang six times, each chime echoing across the quiet streets of the southern colonial city. Once a trade outpost nestled between ridgelines and sea, Salvadora had grown rapidly under Aragon’s rule—its docks now bustling with goods from Firewell, its schools lined with Kareyan chalkboards and foreign instructors. But beneath the veneer of civic progress, something older stirred. Something bitter.
Inside a crumbling church-turned-meeting hall in the barrio of Punta Oeste, dim candlelight flickered against stained walls. The pews had been moved aside to make space for folding tables covered in maps, radio parts, and hastily copied leaflets. On the raised altar, where a crucifix once stood, now hung a red banner sewn with a simple emblem: a broken yoke atop a burning scroll.
A voice pierced the candlelit quiet.
"They give us clinics, but no medicine. Schools, but no books. They teach our children the Kareyan alphabet—but not our names."
Salvadora Cruz stood tall at the head of the room, her voice steady and sharp. Her long black hair was tied back in a practical braid, streaked with ash from the printing press in the back. She wore no uniform, only a red sash looped over one shoulder—the only mark of her position as matriarch of the Red Pavilion.
Around her, men and women—farmers, former clerks, dockworkers, two dismissed soldiers—sat in silence.
"They claim they’ve freed us from imperial shackles," she continued, pacing. "But what they built are golden cages. Their doctrine preaches autonomy, yet we still beg for permits to fix our own roads."
A murmured agreement passed through the room.
"Governor de los Reyes says reforms are coming," Salvadora scoffed. "But every day we wait, another girl in Barangay Kalinaw walks two hours to a Kareyan-built school where the history lessons skip over our ancestors."
She stopped in front of the table and placed a small device down—a wired detonator.