Novels by Anna Stac

"I just don't know what to tell people anymore, Damien. I really don't."Lilian stood in front of her vanity, unpinning the diamonds from her ears. The party was over, but the air in the room was still thick with the smell of the cheap scotch I had been pouring all night. I stood by the door, my jacket over my arm, watching her reflection."You could have told them the truth," I said. My voice was raspy from the silence I had kept for six hours. "You could have said, 'This is my husband.'"Lilian froze. She slowly put the earring down on the glass tabletop. "And then what? Watch the room go quiet? Watch Mr. Thorne pull his tip back because he realized he just handed twenty dollars to a member of the family? It would have been a disaster.""So it’s better that they think you’re married to a ghost?""It’s better than them thinking I’m married to someone who enjoys being a waiter," she snapped, finally turning to face me. Her eyes were red-rimmed. "You didn't even try to correct him, Dam

The Sterling mansion was packed. It wasn't just family this time; it was the "inner circle" of Blackstone City’s elite. Men in five-thousand-dollar tuxedos and women dripping in diamonds moved through the ballroom like sharks in a gilded tank.I was wearing my best suit, the charcoal one. I had spent an hour ironing the shirt, trying to make the frayed collar look crisp. But as I stood near the entrance of the grand hall, I realized I looked less like a guest and more like the background noise."Damien, don't just stand there with your hands in your pockets," Miranda hissed as she brushed past me. She looked radiant in emerald silk, but her eyes were cold. "The catering staff is short-handed. Go to the bar and help them with the crystal. And for heaven’s sake, try to look like you have a purpose.""I was going to find Lilian," I said. "We haven't spoken since this morning.""Lilian is busy with the investors," Miranda snapped. "She doesn't need her 'husband' trailing behind her like a

"Ethan just sent over the keys to his mountain cabin for the weekend," Miranda said, her voice bright and airy. She didn't look at me as I set the heavy breakfast tray down. She was too busy showing Lilian a photo on her phone. "He said the staff is already there. A private chef and a heated pool. Now that is how a woman should be treated.""It looks beautiful, Mother," Lilian murmured. She was staring at the screen, a small, tired smile on her face."It’s not just beautiful, it’s expensive," Victor barked from the head of the table. He didn't look up from his newspaper. "It’s called being a man of means. Ethan knows that a family like ours shouldn't have to worry about the cost of a vacation. He provides the life we deserve. He’s a builder, not a spectator."I stood there, my hands empty now that the tray was settled. I waited for someone to tell me to sit. There were four chairs at the small breakfast table. But Miranda had draped her silk shawl over one, and her designer handbag w

"So, Lilian, how long are you going to keep this up?"The question cut through the air like a cold blade. I stopped just outside the circle of light in the drawing room, holding a tray of drinks. Mr. Henderson, a long time friend of the Sterling family, was leaning back in his leather chair. He was a man who smelled of expensive tobacco and the kind of old money that thought it could buy anything including the right to be cruel."Keep what up, Bill?" Lilian asked. She sounded tired. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa, her hands tucked under her thighs."This little game of house," Henderson said, gesturing toward me without actually looking at me. "The charity work you’re doing by staying married to... whatever his name is. Damien, right?""Bill, please," Lilian whispered. She glanced at me, and for a second, I saw a flicker of shame in her eyes. But it wasn't shame for Henderson’s rudeness. It was shame that I was standing there to hear it."I’m being serious, Lilian," Henderso

"You know, Ethan just bought Lilian a diamond-encrusted watch for no reason at all. Just a 'Tuesday gift,' he called it."I stopped in the doorway of the morning room, the tray of tea things heavy in my hands. Miranda was sitting on the sofa with her sister, Aunt Lydia, who was visiting from the coast. They didn't stop talking when I entered. To them, I was just a part of the house, like the baseboards or the curtains."A Tuesday gift?" Lydia gasped, her eyes wide as she adjusted her pearl necklace. "How romantic. And how much was it?""Fifty thousand," Miranda said, her voice dripping with a pride that wasn't hers to claim. "He said a woman like Lilian shouldn't have to keep track of time on a phone screen like a common worker. He wants her to look at luxury every time she checks the hour.""And what did Damien give her for their anniversary last month?" Lydia asked, casting a sideways glance at me as I set the tea service down on the low table.Miranda let out a sound that was half-

The Sterling Estate was glowing with a predatory kind of warmth. It was the night of the "Legacy Dinner," a quarterly tradition where the extended clan gathered to brag about their portfolios and measure their worth against one another. To me, it was simply another night of navigating a minefield of polished marble and sharpened tongues.I stood in the foyer, adjusting the cuffs of my only suit. It was a charcoal-grey piece I’d bought from a department store sale three years ago. I kept it clean, the creases sharp, but standing under the crystal chandeliers of the Sterling foyer, I felt like a black-and-white photograph in a technicolor world. The other men, cousins, uncles, and business associates—moved in a sea of bespoke Italian wool and silk ties that cost more than my monthly grocery budget."Damien, move. You’re blocking the flow of traffic."I didn't even have to look up to know it was Marcus, Lilian’s cousin. He brushed past me, deliberately catching my shoulder with his. He d

The first morning of the new era didn't start with a siren or a broadcast. It started with the sound of a shovel hitting dirt. I woke up in a room that smelled of cedar and damp earth, the sunlight filtering through leaves that served as my curtains. I didn't reach for my ring, and I didn't check the ship’s sensors. For the first time in my life, the day didn't belong to a mission. It belonged to me.I walked out onto the porch of the house Seraphina and I had built near the river. The "Grand Odyssey" was no longer a fleet of ships in the sky; it had become a landscape. Some ships had been stripped for parts to build hospitals, while others, like the Glitch-Fleet One, remained as monuments in the center of the city. People were moving through the streets—some with the glowing skin of the newer versions, some with the rugged, scarred look of the old 14th District. They were carrying baskets of fruit, rolls of cable, and books."Adrian!" Kaelen called out from the path below. He was car

The air on First Hope didn't just carry the scent of rain anymore; it carried the scent of memory. It had been months since we dropped the first seed, and the gray stone of the planet had vanished beneath a carpet of violet-green moss that felt like velvet under my boots. I walked along the edge of the new river, watching the water churn with a bioluminescent glow. It wasn't the perfect, sterile beauty of the Gardeners' prisms. It was a bit wild, a bit jagged, and entirely ours.I sat down on a smooth rock, my wooden arm resting heavy on my knee. The tattoos of leaves on my skin pulsed with a soft light, syncing with the heartbeat of the planet. For the first time in my life, I wasn't running. I wasn't hiding from the Un-Maker or fighting the logic of the Spires. I was just Adrian, a man who had seen too much and was finally allowed to sit still.Seraphina found me there, as she always did. She didn't say anything at first. She just sat down beside me, her shoulder pressing against mi

The Glitch-Fleet One was no longer a vessel of war; it was a home. After the splintering, the ship’s interior had changed to match my own heart. The cold metal hallways were now lined with soft moss, and the lights glowed with the warm, amber hue of a late afternoon in the 14th District. We were drifting in the quiet space between the Andromeda Garden and the Void-Tunnel, waiting for the rest of the Odyssey to catch up.I sat in the center of the bridge, but I wasn't in the captain’s chair. We had cleared away the heavy consoles to make a wide, open space. My mother was there, teaching the child how to braid hair. Elias and Kaelen were arguing over a game of cards, and Seraphina was cleaning her pulse-seal, though the violet blade stayed tucked away."You're staring again, Adrian," Seraphina said, not looking up from her work."I'm just making sure it's real," I said. My hand felt heavy. The wood-bark tattoos on my arm would pulse green whenever I felt a strong emotion, a permanent re

The transition from flesh to fiber was not a quiet process. It was a roar of growing cells and the sound of cracking timber. I lay on the floor of the bridge, my body arching as white, wooden bark crawled up my neck. My left arm, once scarred and human, was now a heavy, gnarled branch. Leaves that glowed with a faint, violet light began to sprout from my knuckles."Adrian!" Seraphina screamed, her hands hovering over me, afraid to touch the shifting wood. "Elias, do something! He’s turning into a tree!""I can't!" Elias shouted back from his console. "His DNA isn't just changing; it’s expanding. He’s absorbing the ship’s bio-matter. The Glitch-Fleet One is becoming part of his nervous system. Adrian isn't just in the ship—he is the ship!"I could feel it. I could feel the cold vacuum of space pressing against the outer hull, which now felt like my own skin. I could feel the hum of the engines like a second heartbeat in my chest. But more than that, I could feel the other gardens. I co

The Iron Lotus felt less like a sanctuary and more like a coffin.Since the EMP fried the ward, we’d been living by candlelight and battery-powered lanterns. The Librarian had managed to seal the facility’s hard-lines, cutting us off from the outside world before Silas could use the mountain’s own ventilation system to suffocate us. We were safe, but we were blind.I sat at the end of Seraphina’s medical cot, watching the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. She was sleeping, but it wasn't a peaceful rest. Her eyelids kept twitching, a lingering side effect of having her brain used as a high-speed modem."She’s stable," Sarah said, stepping into the room. She’d traded her sniper rifle for a med-kit, but she still walked like she was expecting a ceiling panel to collapse. "The neural paths are scarred, Adrian. She might have trouble remembering things. Small things. Like her birthday, or why she hates the color green.""As long as she remembers who she is," I muttered. I looked at my h

The cargo bay of the Glitch-Fleet One was colder than the void itself. Silas Vance, the man who had once tried to archive the entire human race into a silent library, was shaking. He wasn't the proud architect I remembered. He looked like a man who had seen the end of the world and realized he wasn't invited to the funeral."Silas, look at me," I said, my voice echoing against the metallic walls. "What do you mean they are replacing the writer? The Architects... they are the ones in control.""No," Silas whispered, his eyes darting to the corners of the room as if the shadows were listening. "The Architects are just pencils, Adrian. Sharp, logical pencils. But something has grabbed the hand. The rules of the story... they are changing. It is not about logic anymore. It is not even about hunger."I looked at my hand. The black ring, which had survived the Grand Gardener and the Emerald Core, was turning the color of ash. The violet-emerald light was fading, leaving behind a dull, lifel