Chapter 1

Hey Lily's 🫂

So here's chapter 1 , please do vote and pyare-pyare comments 🩷

Chapter 1: The Weight of Debate



The sun hadn't yet broken over the horizon, but Meera's day was already two hours old. The courtyard was freezing, the stone floor biting into her bare soles as she hauled the heavy metal bucket from the well.

"Meera! The tea is thin again!" her mother's voice shrilled from inside the kitchen. "If you spent less time staring at the birds and more time stoking the fire, your father wouldn't be in such a foul mood."

Meera didn't reply. Experience had taught her that silence was her only shield. She wiped a stray lock of hair from her damp forehead and hurried inside. Her father, Om, sat at the wooden table, obsessively counting a small stack of crumpled bills. His face was a map of bitterness, his eyes dark with a stress he refused to explain.

"It's not enough," Om muttered, slamming his hand on the table. "That interest... it grows like a weed."

"Maybe if we asked Arjun for help?" Meera suggested softly, mentioning her elder brother who was studying in the city.

Her father's eyes snapped up, flashing with anger. "Your brother is becoming a gentleman. He is the future of this family. I will not burden him with the dirt of this village. You," he pointed a finger at Meera, "just get to the chores. The Sarpanch's men are coming today."

The Sarpanch's estate sat on the highest hill of the village, a sprawling white mansion that looked down on the clusters of mud-brick houses like a sleeping giant. It was owned by the Thakur family. The eldest son, Dev, was the one who truly ran the lands now. He was known to be as cold as the marble floors of his home, a man of few words and even fewer smiles.

When the black jeep rolled into Meera's dusty yard later that afternoon, the village went silent. But it wasn't Dev who stepped out. It was his mother, Savitri Devi, a woman whose silk saree cost more than Meera's house.

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Meera stood in the shadows of the doorway, watching her father tremble.

"The debt is three months overdue, Om," Savitri Devi said, her voice calm but terrifying. She didn't even look at the house; her eyes were on the vast gold fields in the distance.

"I know, Thakurain... please, the harvest was poor-"

"I am not interested in the weather," she interrupted. She turned her head slowly, her gaze landing directly on Meera. Meera felt like a deer caught in a hunter's sights. Savitri had heard the rumors: Om's daughter was the hardest worker in the village, beautiful despite her rags, and-most importantly-obedient.

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Savitri Devi stepped toward the porch. "My son needs a wife who understands the soil of this village, not a city girl who is afraid of the sun. He needs someone who knows how to serve a household without complaint."

Om blinked, confused. "But... the money..."

"Marry her to ABHIRAJ," Savitri said, as if she were discussing the sale of a plot of land. "The debt will be erased. In fact, I will pay for Arjun's final year of university myself. Your daughter will live in a mansion, and you will never worry about a loan again."

Meera's heart dropped into her stomach. She looked at her mother, hoping to see a flicker of protest, a protective instinct. Instead, she saw her mother's eyes light up with greed and relief.

"It is a blessing!" her mother whispered, already pushing Meera forward toward the woman who had just bought her.

Meera looked up at the white mansion on the hill. She wasn't being married; she was being traded. And as she looked into Savitri Devi's cold, satisfied eyes, she realized her life of chores was simply moving from a small house to a very large cage.

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.Abhi toh sirf sauda hua hai, ishq hona baaki hai. Kya Meera is toofaan ko jhel payegi?"

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