Ren announced his retirement on a Tuesday.
This was not a surprise. He had been announcing his retirement in one form or another for the entire time I had known him across this life, and I suspected he had been announcing it for several years before I arrived. The difference this time was the expression on his face — not the resigned humor he usually wore when discussing it, but something quieter, more genuinely considered.
"I have a nephew in the eastern provinces," he said. "He runs a paper-making business. Very boring. Very stable. No one has tried to overthrow any dynasties in his vicinity for at least forty years."
Kaien looked at him with the expression of a man who had heard this before but was listening this time.
"You mean it," he said.
