The core remained.
Full. Untouched. Humming with the same potential it had held a moment before.
And now, completely, permanently, alone.
Freda's body didn't react visibly. She was too deep in unconsciousness, too far past the threshold where pain could reach her, for there to be any external sign at all. Her face stayed slack. Her green hair stayed where it had fallen.
But somewhere, in the part of a sleeping mind that processes things the conscious mind hasn't caught up to yet, something registered.
A small, involuntary sound. Not a word. Not quite a sob.
The sound of someone, somewhere very far down, beginning to understand that something essential had been taken, before they had any way of knowing what or why.
Chronus felt it happen.
He nodded once, satisfied, the way a craftsman nods at completed work.
