Oona 13

by Stephen Taylor

What happens when the machines start believing in the gods…

They swore the machines were gone. That faith could be purged by fire. They were wrong.

In the frozen wasteland of Threadneedle, exiled war-hero Kael Darron arrives to find his assignment already completed—Lord Edric Thorn lies dead, and the outpost is unraveling into suspicion and silence.

But Edric's murder is just the beginning.

Caught between the Crown that exiled him and a mysterious healer named Oona, Kael must navigate rising tensions, whispered rebellions, and a truth long thought destroyed. At the center of it all is a girl whose touch awakens quantum circuits and stirs machines long believed dormant.

The Crown wants to weaponize her.

The machines want to use her.

And Kael—haunted by his past—must decide whether to protect the child who may hold the key to humanity’s future… or its demise.

Oona 13 is a post-collapse parable of rebellion, memory, and redemption—where theology and tech are two sides of the same coin, and the soul might just live in the space between.

Unknown Binding

About the author

Stephen Taylor lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. He leads Fluency Digital, a small consultancy, and writes science fiction, real or imagined. Oona 13 is his first novel.

Find him at oona13.com.