I would have given anything to the creature in front of me in that moment thirty years ago.

I was painfully desperate for something, anything to come of the years of schooling that were being wasted by my blacksmithing job in our tiny mountain village. Temeneh had enough blacksmiths. Five, to be exact.

And I wasn’t even a blacksmith yet. I had spent seven years as the only apprentice under the town’s oldest smith. He kept saying I was “getting there” but the only jobs he would give me were horseshoes and household objects. None of the broadsword engraving for the shiny knights that came through the mountain pass toward the rest of the kingdom. Maybe he would allow me the occasional trim hammer for a farmer just starting out.

Apprenticeships usually lasted three years.

Besides, I had no idea “where” exactly my master wanted me to go. Surely, if I wasn’t good enough at something the other four blacksmiths in town could lend their expertise. I just wanted to start making weapons.

No, not because they could hurt people. Weapons were artistic. Broadswords with lovers’ names subtly engraved in the hilt, or enemies’ names at the tip of a shiny and sharp blade. A curved sword so lithe that it could cut air. Scythes so grand they would make the grim reaper jealous.

Speaking of. I had no idea what exactly stood in front of me. It looked like a man, but its skin was redder than the burning coal of the forge it had just stepped out of. I sat cross-legged in front of it to open my lunch. The damn thing was eating up my only break in a seventeen-hour day.

“Well,” It crossed its arms and tapped a lazy finger on its shoulder. I shouldn’t say it. The creature evidently looked like a he. Other than the fire-tinged skin, he was the size of a soldier, nearly six feet tall with a similar build. I would have expected a standard broadsword held at his side, but there was no weapon in sight. When I had asked him about it, he had said he didn’t need one. I couldn’t help but let a small scoff escape. Everyone who looked like him had a giant head. I didn’t bother to get up. Soldiers in the army’s ranks had inspired more fear in me. Besides, what was the worst he could do, kill me?

Hell is in Temeneh anyway.

Every other blacksmith in town had done something they were proud of. Create an iron cast for the King, or in the case of my master, supply the King’s knights’ weapons almost exclusively. When I began the apprenticeship, I imagined that would be my future too.

I had gone far from my family’s farm in Temeneh to the kingdom’s best weapons school, right by the King’s castle. Most students went on to knighthood, but I had no interest in fighting. To me, it was making the weapons that was most worth my time. Making the most perfect lightweight sword, branding each hilt with my own crest, even making brand-new pieces. Weapons no one had ever seen before, from swords made of two intertwining metals to hexagonal axes. Weapons were works of art, and I wanted to see mine brandished across the King’s army.

So, my teachers had told me to find a blacksmith. The best one just so happened to be near home.

Now, I questioned every day why I was here. If my master would let me make a single sword for the King’s commander, or even just a bejeweled hunting knife for the King himself. My master would see what I was worthy of. The King could see what I was worthy of.

“And that’s what you want?” The creature that had appeared from my master’s forge asked with a smug little grin. The closer I looked, the more his skin looked like fire, with black smoke curling off his arms and chest. Actually, he didn’t really have skin. It was all hues of orange, blue, and white flame. His body tapered into smoke after his waist, disappearing into the forge.

“That’s what I want.” I had repeated. The creature rubbed his chin.

“Are you sure?”

“What do you mean am I sure?” My face twisted into a mocking grimace and my voice rose two octaves at the end of my sentence before returning to its normal timbre. “I’ve been thinking about it for seven years.”

“What do you mean?!” He mocked right back. I felt like I was having an argument with my little sister, except his voice sounded eerily like my own. “I mean,” He spread his arms wide. “You come face-to-face with me, and you don’t want to think twice about what I’m offering you?”

“Well,” I scratched my head and glanced around. Until now, I had assumed I knew exactly what this creature was. Red smoke, wishes, he had to be a genie, right? “I just kind of assumed you wanted to grant me three wishes.”

“What?” His voice became deeper, fuller. “You thought I was just a demon?!”

“Uh, um, not really.” I responded rather stupidly. “More like a…genie?”

The creature made a retching noise. I actually thought he was going to vomit.

“That’s disgusting.” He said solemnly, once he had composed himself.

“Then what exactly are you?” I crossed my arms. I didn’t think calling him a genie was as offensive as he was making it out to be. Drama queen.

“You—ugh.” He sighed and rested his burning forehead into his burning palm. Were they really burning if they were made of fire? “Darling,” He took on what I thought was a rather patronizing tone.

“I am far worse.”

His voice had a chilling confidence that sent involuntary goosebumps up my spine. I could tell he was satisfied with the look on my face, because his exasperation turned into a cunning grin. “They have many names for me around the world,” He continued. “You can call me whichever suits your fancy. Mestophiles, Shaitan, Iblis, Belial, Lucifer…” He trailed off in thought.

I hadn’t heard any of those names before except for one. “Are you telling me that you’re the Devil?”

“Yes, if that’s what you want to call it.”

In all the days of my childhood when I remember my mother threatening that the Devil would want to take me if I misbehaved, I always thought I’d be at least a little terrified if that day ever came. Now, staring him right in the face, I wasn’t even sure this was, in fact the Devil. But hadn’t he just told me he was?

“What?” He asked irritably, I had been staring. I gave a meek effort to wipe the slack-jawed expression I could feel had taken over, but I imagine I did not do a very good job. The Devil’s face didn’t look any less irritated.

“I just thought you’d look different.” My nonchalance took me aback. It certainly did not match my face.

“I can look however I want. How did you think I’d look?” The Devil tilted his head curiously. I imagined he had not been expecting this conversation.

“I’m not sure,” I mused. “Just… more.”

The irritated look on his face returned swiftly.

“So if you really are the devil—”

“I am.”

“If you really are,” I continued. “Then why are you here?”

“Obviously, to make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” At this point, I imagined he thought all my questions were stupid. I didn’t care.

“Whatever you want.”

“But what are the terms of your deal?” I raised an eyebrow. I heard no shortage of these stories in my time. Someone was stupid enough to make a deal with the Devil and got more than what they bargained.

Something tugged in my chest. It was pulling me toward the forge. Toward the Devil himself. I stifled a sound bubbling in my throat. He could give me everything I wanted. A place beside the King in history, perhaps even a craft of my own that would carry forward for centuries. I thought of a grand weapons master’s crest, and those fancy wax seals that nobles signed their letters with. An oval table with the King at the head and myself at the opposite side, surrounded by the most skilled knights in the kingdom. They would be far more skilled that I could ever find and make weapons for in Temeneh. They would know how to handle my dear creations. I would clothe myself in the finest silks, my crest embroidered on the cuffs of every one of my fabric items. Oh, how masters from cities I hadn’t even heard of could desire my weapons for themselves the way that I desired now to make them.

I had no real opposition to selling my soul for what I had wanted since I left Temeneh and returned, as long as the Devil did not wish to take any more than we had agreed on.

“I’ll admit,” The Devil’s voice pulled me out of my own thoughts, but my chest ached with desperation still. So close. “My terms can be quite steep.”

“I guess that depends on what I’m getting.” I forced out. I could have agreed then, but that would have been more foolish than I was willing to let myself be. I was foolish enough to entertain this conversation in the first place.

“You can have everything you want.” The Devil smiled a syrupy, inviting, smirk. “In exchange, all I ask is for your soul after a life well-lived.”

That seemed less than outrageous, didn’t it? After all, my soul had to go somewhere after a life well-lived, and while I did not sin, I never thought of myself as model citizen. At least this way, I knew where I was headed.

The tug in my chest became so strong I had to sigh deeply to relieve the pressure on my heart. Whatever was in there pressed even harder onto my ribcage, making the weight on my heart far too heavy for my chest to hold.

Seven years. What was the point of staying here, anyway? Nothing had changed since I arrived, and as it were, nothing was going to change soon. I was going to stay static, staring at horseshoes if I remained with my master. I could leave, but where would I go? I would have no livelihood and no way to continue my craft. No, this, the Devil’s deal, promised me a way to become a weapons master that my own master or even the King could not have promised themselves.

“Do you promise me glory?”

“All that which you are due.” The Devil’s voice was enticing now, dripping in honey and my own desire.

I shook my head vigorously. Was it worth my soul? “Hold on,” I raised a palm. The Devil leaned back ever so slightly. “Why me?”

“What?” he choked out.

“How’d you know how to find me?”

“This is…” he trailed off for a moment. “I mean… this is my job.”

“So out of all of Temeneh’s blacksmith apprentices…”

“Can we just get on with it?” The Devil sighed. “I don’t have so much time.”

“You are an eternal being.”

“With an eternity of tasks.”

“I’m not stopping you.”

“Look,” The Devil’s voice was still surprisingly honeylike despite the impatience I could sense in his tone. I was still leaning forward, hanging onto his next words. What were his terms? “If you want this, I’ll settle for your soul. Normally, I bid higher for dreams that mortals want this badly, but you seem to be driving an indecisive bargain.”

“Really?” I felt like I was bartering for a piece of jewelry at the Temeneh street market. This was my destiny. My soul. One for the other.

“Yes, I usually take more in the fine print but…” the Devil looked at me carefully. Did the Devil even know how to look at people carefully? “I’ll make you a straightforward deal.”

I thought I knew better than to make a deal with the Devil. But it had been seven years since anything exciting had last happened to me and God-knows-how-long since I had dreams promised like this to me. I couldn’t even remember the last time I had felt like they could have the strangest inkling of coming through.

“Fine. You have a deal.”

The Devil smiled, fully this time. The forge turned bright red, then orange, then the flame burned white-hot, beckoning me to it. It was way too hot to touch. I knew that.

“Excellent. Tell me your name.”

“Nisa.”

I tell you this now, dear apprentice, because without the Devil, I would not have the very forge I have employed you in. You sit at the throne of weapons makers, next to the King where we belong, because of a deal many would call unholy.

But I call it fair. My soul begs to complete the promise I made decades ago. But you can be assured the Devil will return with new demands and greedy little hands to build upon what he has already given us. I cannot tell you not to make the same promise I did, but I can warn you that whatever you choose, you must spend the rest of your life willing to live with it, Whether that is your soul forever promised to another or your choice to be free.