Artefice

One day, walking across the multitude of rooms in his palace, the emperor stopped and saw a new face, one never seen before.

“Who are you?” he addressed.

“I am the Maker of all your jewels.”

“A woman could never be as dexterous to create all of my treasures! Surely there’s the hand of men behind all of this. How dare you lie to me?”

So he challenged the woman: he gave her a quartz stone and told her to make a jewel worthy of a king so she could prove she was, in fact, a goldsmith.

Without hesitating, the woman accepted. She spent seven days and seven nights meditating and on the eighth, during sunrise, she came to his presence. With the raw mineral in one hand and a little scalpel in the other one, she forged the ring in a single perfect shot.