Dawn's light seeped through the bedroom window like a hesitant whisper, casting fractured shadows across the cracked tile floor. Aradhya's breath hitched as she stirred beside Vijay, her body aching with the weight of sleepless nights and unspoken grief. The clock's hands inched toward five, each tick a metronome for the day's inevitable cruelty. Her beauty—once a source of pride, now a hollow trophy—felt like a lie. The Sharma household had not sent her to be a wife, but a servant, a shadow to blend into their walls. Yet even that role was failing her.

She rose, her feet numb against the cold tiles, and moved to the bathroom. The mirror, spiderwebbed with cracks, reflected a stranger: eyes ringed with shadows, lips pressed into a thin line, a purpling bruise blooming on her cheek where Vijay's belt had landed last night. She cupped water from the brass bucket, its chill searing her skin, and twisted her hair into a tight knot beneath her saree. The fabric clung to her like a shroud. Today, the family would feast. Today, they would remind her of her failure.

By 5:30, the kitchen was a symphony of suffering—mustard seeds popping in oil, the rhythmic thunk of her knife against the cutting board, the hiss of steam from the coal stove. Her hands trembled, flour dusting her knuckles like ash. She forced herself to focus: One misstep, one burnt paratha, and they'll have another reason to laugh.

The dining hall's doors creaked open at six, and the Sharma family filed in like vultures. Meena entered first, her silk saree trailing like a serpent's tongue, bangles clinking like laughter. She lounged in her chair, eyes narrowing as she studied Aradhya. "Six years," she purred, sipping her chai. "You've aged beautifully, haven't you? Still radiant, still... empty." Her smile was a blade. "A woman's beauty fades if it has no purpose. What good is a rose that never bears fruit?"

Aradhya's fingers tightened on the tray, her nails biting into her palms. She set the dishes down with a shudder, her voice a fragile thread. "I'm doing everything the doctor said, Ma. Please—"

"Please nothing," Meena interrupted, her tone syrupy with disdain. "You're not a patient, Aradhya. You're a problem."

Priya, her braid coiled like a spring, leaned forward, her laughter sharp as broken glass. "Maybe you're cursed," she mused, flipping a page of her magazine. "I heard the new yoga instructor at the club has a daughter. A virgin, they say. Maybe Vijay should try her. Fresh blood, you know?" The table fell silent, save for the clink of her spoon against her bowl. Aradhya's vision blurred, but she kept her head bowed. Say nothing. Say nothing.

Anandi, ever the picture of propriety, dabbed her lips with a napkin. "You know, in my mother-in-law's village, a woman who couldn't bear children was given to the temple. A devadasi," she said, the word dripping with mockery. "Perhaps you'd find peace in servitude, where you belong."

Vijay, at the head of the table, stirred his coffee with a spoon that clattered too loudly. His silence was a storm cloud, but when he spoke, his voice was a low, jagged growl. "Ma, enough." He didn't look at Aradhya, but the heat in his words made her flinch. "This isn't a marketplace. We don't replace people."

Meena's smile returned, slow and venomous. "Is that so, beta? Or are you just afraid to admit she's a waste of your time?" Her gaze slid to Aradhya, glittering with malice. "A second wife isn't shameful, Vijay. It's practical. The Sharma name needs an heir. You need a real woman."

The room held its breath. Priya's grin was a slash across the silence. Anandi's fingers traced the edge of her plate, as if carving Aradhya's fate into the porcelain. Vijay's hand slammed on the table, rattling the teacups. "Don't. Speak to me like that," he hissed.

But it was too late. The poison had already seeped into the cracks.

Later, as Aradhya scrubbed the dining hall floor, her knees raw against the tiles, Meena's words echoed in her skull. Barren. Useless. A waste. She had no family to flee to, no friends Vijay hadn't driven away with his quiet threats. Her saree, once a symbol of her wedding day, now felt like a noose.

At dinner, the taunts resumed, sharper now. "You've grown pale, Aradhya," Anandi said, her voice a scalpel. "Like a ghost. Perhaps that's what you are—haunting this house with your failures." Priya giggled, a sound like a child toying with a wounded bird. "Tell us, Bhabhi, do you even want a child? Or are you too busy mourning the life you'll never have?"

Vijay said nothing. He never did.

By nightfall, the house was a mausoleum of silence. Aradhya stood in the doorway of their bedroom, her saree clinging to her sweat-damp skin. Vijay sat hunched over his papers, the pen in his hand shaking. When he finally looked up, his eyes were black with fury.

"You think you're a woman?" he snarled, rising to face her. "You're a joke. A shame. They laugh at me because of you." His belt hissed through the air, and she flinched, though no part of her could move fast enough to escape.

He bound her wrists to the bedpost, the leather biting into her flesh. "Say it," he demanded, his voice a snarl. "Say you're nothing."

"I'm nothing," she whispered, the words a dirge.

"Louder," he spat, his fingers bruising her jaw as he forced her to meet his gaze. "Make them hear you when I'm done with you."

The kiss was a wound, his teeth gnawing at her lip until blood bloomed on her tongue. She didn't cry out. She had learned that sound was a luxury. Instead, she let her tears fall, their warmth a fleeting rebellion against the cold certainty of her existence.

When he was finished, he left without a word, the door slamming like a coffin lid. Aradhya lay there, her body aching, her wrists chafing against the belt. She stared at the ceiling, where cracks spiderwebbed like the mirror in the bathroom. A cracked woman in a cracked house, she thought, her laugh a broken sob.

The Sharma family's laughter still lingered in her bones. Tomorrow, the cycle would begin again. But tonight, in the dark, she let herself whisper a truth she'd buried long ago: I was never meant to be a wife. I was meant to be free.

The words dissolved into silence. The clock ticked on.