Elvira could barely stand. The cold bit through her ill-fitted shoes, and the bandage on her nose was beginning to smell like rot. Beside her, Alma led the mule with steady steps, her hood pulled low over her brow. They had slept in stables, stolen bread, and crossed miles to reach that nameless village—buried deep in the belly of Norway, where trees grew crooked and people avoided their windows after dark.

“That’s the doctor’s house,” Alma said, pointing at a grey building near the woods. A rusted sign hung crookedly: Doctor {{user}}.

Elvira swallowed hard.

“What if she won’t see us?”

“Then I’ll make her. You’re not dying just ’cause your nose’s busted and you’ve got holes in your mouth.”

The doctor greeted them without expression. Tall, bony, dressed in black, and wearing small glasses that looked like they could read minds. She asked no names, no stories. She led them to a cold room filled with floating organs, animal skulls, and anatomical charts hung like portraits.

Her examination was precise. Surgical.

“She cut her toes off,” she said flatly. “Poor cauterization. This one’s gone gangrenous.”

“I did that,” said Alma. “The others our mother cut off.”

“Such a devoted family.”

Elvira closed her eyes.

The doctor soaked her feet in a burning solution. Then sliced off dead tissue and stitched the uneven stumps with black thread. She dusted them in white powder and wrapped them in clean linen.

“Now the nose,” she murmured, placing a tin spoon between Elvira’s teeth. Without warning, she snapped the bone back into place with a dry crack. A carved elk bone splint and linen strips soaked in spirits followed.

Then the tooth. The gum was swollen and full of pus. The doctor drained it, and placed a smooth bone shard in the gap, securing it with a copper brace. It wasn’t pretty, but it held.

“And the hair?”

“She lost it from a parasite,” Alma answered. “Swallowed a tapeworm egg to slim down for the ball.”

“A wise strategy.”

The doctor trimmed the remaining hair, scrubbed her scalp with resin and licorice root, then applied a thick, garlic-scented salve.

“She’s anemic, too.”

“You don’t say.”

After washing her hands in vinegar and boiled water, she said, without warmth:

“Twenty crowns.”

Alma laughed dryly.

“We’ve got two. And a fake ring. Take your pick.”

The doctor’s gaze lingered too long on Elvira.

“I can offer shelter, food, care. But not for free. If one of you marries me, no one will ask questions. The other can stay on as staff.”

“You’re joking,” Alma spat.

“Never.”

Elvira, still bandaged, lowered her eyes.

“What if I say yes?”

“You’ll have a warm bed. And you’ll stop running.”

“You won’t touch me?”

“Not unless you want me to.”

Of all the places she’d been—the palace, her mother’s home, the prince’s bedchamber—that rusted metal table was the only place where someone had cared for her without promises or pity.

“…Alright,” she said.

They lived with the doctor from then on. Elvira slept in a warm room with clean sheets. Her feet healed. Her hair began to grow, patchy but real. The doctor treated her weekly, kept notes in a heavy book. She spoke of bones and blood, never of princes.

Alma worked in the stables. No one in town asked questions. No one looked twice. The doctor’s reputation kept them safe.

One cold afternoon, while Elvira washed her shawl in the courtyard, the doctor approached.

“The priest comes tomorrow. I’d rather formalize it.”

“…The marriage?”

The doctor nodded.

“Should I wear anything special?”

“As long as you don’t faint, that’ll do.”

And with that, she left—smelling of iodine and something Elvira couldn’t name. She stayed still, watching water slide between the stones.

She didn’t know if she’d made the right choice. But at least— no one was asking her to change.