Auren's death was sealed the moment he drew the sword. Apparently, he was right. The Garden of Grief couldn't be robbing him of his senses.
It was the sword's doing. The blade was his only point of contact in the realm of true darkness. He realized this the instant he lost that physical connection.
He felt liberated, and his mind wandered to the one possibility he hadn't considered—the very thing that hadn't crossed his mind even fleetingly. The sword.
Which wasn't far-fetched, considering it belonged to a woman who appeared to be in her thirties but had actually lived beyond five centuries.
When Auren framed it that way, it made perfect sense for the blade to be damned and cursed. Yet such a manner of death seemed profoundly wicked. The sword seemed to be stripping him of everything he relied on at that moment.
Which meant to wield a weapon like this, he needed to master detachment from those very things.
