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.

"This is what they understand. Not protests. Not petitions. Pressure."

Gasps rippled through the room, but no one stood to object.

Behind her, a young courier entered through the side door, his shirt damp from rain.

"The leaflets have spread across Argao, Ma’am. And the second press is working."

Salvadora nodded.

"Then tomorrow," she said, "we begin Phase Two."

Cebu Colony – Colonial Governor’s Palace

The Next Day

Governor Marcial de los Reyes stood in his office, reviewing a stack of reports that had grown uncomfortably thick. Vandalized Kareyan posters. Arson at a land registrar’s outpost. Threatening notes sent to three local councilors—all signed with a red yoke. He pinched the bridge of his nose and turned to his aide.

"How many sympathizers are we estimating now?"

"Hard to say, sir. But Salvadora’s rhetoric has traction. Especially inland."

The governor walked to the window and looked out toward the central plaza. Just days ago, there had been a festival—music, banners, families watching students perform Kareyan dances. Today, soldiers stood on each corner, trying not to look tense.

"Has the Civic Council authorized reinforcements?" he asked.

"Not yet. They’re hesitant. Too many eyes watching after Ilocos. Any hint of military escalation could backfire."

Governor de los Reyes sighed. He had been a schoolteacher before his appointment—an idealist, chosen for his calm temperament and Kareyan fluency. Now, he was managing what could become a civil war.

He turned from the window. "Then we’ll have to deal with this ourselves. Quietly."

The Red Pavilion – Safehouse in San Remigio

The air reeked of ink and grease. Salvadora hunched over the rotary press, pulling fresh pages off the tray as her fingers moved in practiced rhythm. Each pamphlet bore her signature article—"A Doctrine of Silence"—accusing the Aragonese administration of building an empire that smiled as it suffocated.

Beside her, Teresita, a former schoolteacher turned propagandist, folded and bundled the pages into satchels.

"They’re arresting sympathizers in the north," Teresita said quietly.

"Good," Salvadora replied without looking up. "Means they’re scared."

"But if they escalate—"

"They already did," Salvadora snapped. "When they built a school on stolen land. When they offered elections but disqualified anyone without Kareyan literacy. When they shut down my brother’s clinic because he distributed native herbs."

Teresita didn’t speak again.

A knock at the back door.

Salvadora rose, wiped her hands, and opened it.

A young man—barely eighteen—stood there with a bloodied bandage on his arm.

"We hit the patrol station," he said breathlessly. "Just like you ordered. Took their radios. Nobody killed... but they’re scrambling."

"Did they trace you?"

"No, Ma’am. We split up after."

She nodded, then looked behind him. A second courier emerged, dragging a crate of stolen equipment.

Inside were three hand-crank generators, four Kareyan medical kits, and one military-grade transmitter.

Phase Three could now begin.

Salvadora – Transmission Room, That Evening

The signal crackled alive as the generator hummed. Teresita adjusted the frequency dial while Salvadora stood before the mic. She wore a red scarf now, its edge threaded with gold.

"Citizens of Cebu," she began, her voice clear and carried across rooftops by illegal radios and jury-rigged speakers, "this is not a call to arms. It is a call to memory."

She paused.

"Remember who you were before the councils and quotas. Before the reforms that weighed our rice and measured our children’s tongues. Remember when our villages governed themselves, when land was shared in harvest, not in ledgers."

She leaned closer.

"The Kareya Doctrine claims to liberate. But it only rebranded the leash."

Behind her, the printer began spitting copies of the speech.

"Tomorrow, we march—not with guns, but with questions. And we will not leave the plaza until we are heard."

Cebu City – Central Plaza

The Next Morning

They came in silence. Farmers, nurses, dropouts from Kareyan trade schools. Some carried placards. Others simply stood. The red yoke painted across cloth and wood was everywhere. Governor de los Reyes watched from a rooftop balcony, flanked by two guards.

"They’re not shouting," one of the officers muttered.

"No," the governor said. "They’re listening. Waiting."

Down below, Salvadora stepped onto a stone bench and raised a hand. The crowd stilled.

"We have no speech today," she said. "We only have questions."

She turned toward the colonial administration building.

"Who decides what language our children learn?"

The crowd echoed: Who?

"Who decides which crops matter?"

Who?

"Who signs our land papers, files our tax assessments, approves our medicines?"

Who?

The repetition built into a rhythm. A chant. A surge.

Governor de los Reyes knew what came next. The pattern was deliberate. Not a riot. A referendum.

He stepped onto the front steps of the building.

"I’ll speak," he called.

The plaza fell still.

The Negotiation

A temporary table was set in the open square. Salvadora sat opposite Governor de los Reyes, surrounded by witnesses from both sides. There were no microphones. No flags. Only words.

"We don’t seek war," Salvadora said. "We seek recognition."

"Of what?" the governor asked.

"Our right to govern ourselves. To set education policy locally. To manage land according to ancestral law."

The governor tapped his pen. "Some of that is achievable. But Kareyan law—"

"Was written in Firewell," Salvadora interrupted. "We don’t live in Firewell."

He sighed. "I’m not your enemy, Salvadora. I was appointed because I believe in this doctrine."

"Then prove it," she said. "Suspend the national curriculum in three municipalities for two years. Let us write our own. Let the results speak."

The governor paused. A dangerous precedent.

But also a test case.

"I’ll need council approval," he began.

"Then get it," she said, rising. "Or we escalate. And next time, we won’t come unarmed."

Civic Response – Three Days Later

The Council approved the experimental program. Three municipalities—Kalinaw, San Remigio, and Talisay—were granted autonomy to draft local education policy, with Kareyan funding intact. A new Bureau of Cultural Affairs was created, housed within the colonial government but staffed locally.

But the Red Pavilion didn’t celebrate.

Because two days after the reforms were announced, one of their organizers—Luis Ortega—was found dead outside the city. A sign pinned to his chest read: Too much truth is dangerous.

Salvadora buried him herself.

Later That Night – Red Pavilion Meeting Hall

The candlelight returned. So did the maps. But the detonator was gone.

In its place lay a small notebook, opened to the first page. Salvadora wrote as she spoke.

"They gave us one inch," she said, "but took one life."

The room was quiet.

"We will accept their offer. Build our schools. Teach our ways. But we do so with eyes open."

She looked at each member in turn.

"The Red Pavilion does not disband. We evolve."

Final Entry – Salvadora’s Journal

They thought we wanted power. They were wrong. We wanted breath. Space. Voice.

We got a piece of that today.

But the shadow still lingers. One death means they still think they control the rules.

So we change the game.

Not with fire. Not yet.

With light. With learning. With truth, louder than the rifles they hide behind.

And when the time comes—when they try to take even that away—we’ll be ready.

And we won’t be singing alone.