Novels by Amy Gold

London’s night was heavy with fog, a pale glow of streetlights cutting through the mist. Liam Mercer crouched atop the roof of an abandoned nightclub, his eyes fixed on the figure below.He had been tracking him for days, a man known only as Kael Draven, a minor warlord in the underworld who had recently acquired supernatural enhancements from the Divine Houses. Rumors said he had taken Core Fragments for himself, bending their power to his will. And he had crossed Liam first.“You don’t know me,” Liam muttered, wind curling around his fists, “but you will remember this night.”Below, Kael laughed, a cruel, high-pitched sound that carried across the foggy streets. “So, the little courier thinks he’s a storm now? Come down and face me, Wind Boy.”Liam’s lips twisted into a grin. “Face me? No, I’m going to teach you respect.”The air around Liam coiled, responding to his intent. Cyclones formed around his body, lifting debris, tossing rain into spinning blades. The fog seemed to twist

The city was quieter now, the storm having passed, leaving the streets glistening under scattered streetlights. Liam Mercer followed the cloaked mentor through narrow alleyways and hidden passageways of London, every step silent, purposeful. The docks behind him were abandoned, the echo of last night’s battle fading into memory. “Where are we going?” Liam asked, voice low, still carrying the rough edge of adrenaline.“To a place few have ever seen,” the mentor replied, hooded face unreadable. “A place where the Divine Houses maintain their secrets. Where power is cataloged, measured, and distributed.”Liam frowned. “You mean, like a library?”The mentor shook their head. “More than that. It is a vault. A nexus of knowledge and power. Core Fragments, elemental hierarchies, forbidden rituals, all here. But the Houses guard it jealously. Few who enter leave unchanged.”“Great,” Liam thought. “Just what I need, more rules, more traps, more people trying to kill me.”The mentor led him t

The night hung heavy over London, fog curling around the streetlights like smoke. Liam Mercer’s boots slapped against the slick rooftop of a derelict warehouse, rain soaking him to the bone. His chest still pulsed with the aftershock of the previous day’s training, veins glowing faintly blue beneath wet fabric.Below, the Thames hissed as water hit the embankments. Shadows shifted along the docks, more than the usual drunks and stray cats. Liam’s instincts, sharpened by the System, told him: they were coming. He inhaled, letting the wind curl around him. A gust lifted a broken metal sign and hurled it toward the river. Acolytes moved beneath it, shadows fluid, coordinated, striking silently. “Show yourselves!” Liam yelled. “I’m not hiding anymore!”A chill, unnatural wind answered him. Five figures emerged from the fog, levitating slightly above the wet cobblestones, sigils glowing along their robes in crimson and gold.“Bearer of the Wind,” one intoned, voice echoing like thunder

The storm had faded into a dull drizzle by the early hours of morning. Liam Mercer sat on the edge of the crumbling pier, legs dangling over the black water of the Thames. The docks were silent now, abandoned except for the occasional creak of rusted metal in the wind. His clothes clung to him like a second skin, cold and heavy, but the adrenaline that had kept him alive for hours still thrummed through his veins.He flexed his fingers. The faint glow of the mark on his arm pulsed softly, almost like a heartbeat. The wind responded subtly, rippling around him, as if testing his command.“Alright,” he muttered, voice rough from shouting and storming. “Let’s see what you can really do.”[Wind Mastery: Basic Control Active. Sub-routines Available: Air Strike, Gale Step, Cyclone Shield.]The voice of the System in his head was calm, mechanical, yet threaded with an almost imperceptible tone of approval. He inhaled sharply, reaching out with his mind. A breeze tickled his face, then swe

Rain sliced across Liam’s face as he sprinted along the empty Docklands pier, water sloshing through his shoes. The storm had not relented; if anything, it had grown angrier, thrashing against him like some divine judge. Every gust of wind felt alive now, twisting around him, lifting his soaked coat, tugging at his hair, whispering promises he didn’t fully understand.The cloaked Acolytes had vanished into the mist after his first strike, but he could feel them. Every movement of air carried their intent, subtle distortions that tickled the edge of his awareness. “System,” he muttered, voice cutting through the roar of thunder. “Track them.”[Target signatures detected: five entities. Current vectors: converging. Distance: 400 meters.]Liam’s teeth clenched. He pressed off a crate, landing with a wet slap, sprinting toward the nearest street. The wind surged, lifting puddles in swirling patterns behind him, carrying shards of metal and splintered wood. It was instinct now, reflexi

Liam Mercer stepped out of the ruined laundrette, breath steaming in the cold. The glow under his sleeve still pulsed faintly, matching the thud of his heart. His clothes clung heavy with rain and blood, but his mind felt sharper than it ever had.The city looked different now, every gust of wind whispered, every light flickered like a signal. He could sense the rhythm of the air itself, as though London had veins and he could feel them beating. “System,” he said under his breath, not sure if he was mad or chosen. “You still there?”[Online.][Awaiting directive.]He swallowed. “Locate Marcus Vane.”A pause, then: [Insufficient data. Nearest trace: 1.3 kilometers, Docklands district.]“The docks,” Liam muttered. “Of course it’s the bloody docks.”He started walking. Every step hurt, but he didn’t slow. The wind seemed to part for him, sweeping debris from his path. Sirens wailed somewhere uptown, maybe for the wreckage he’d left behind. “Marcus set me up. He knew what was in that p

The fall should have killed him. Stone blurred into rain, and rain blurred into nothing. When Asher’s body struck the lower rooftops of Erevale, he didn’t feel the pain, not at first. Only a thunderous silence, and the ghost of laughter echoing from above, then came the agony. Sharp, burning, real.He lay among broken tiles and shattered lantern glass, breathing smoke and blood. The mark on his chest glowed faintly through torn robes, pulsing in time with his heart. The Sovereign’s voice drifted through his mind, distant but alive. “Still breathing. You fall well, Asher Kane.”Asher spat blood. “Shut up.”“You should thank me. I slowed your descent. I even caught the wind for you.”He rolled onto his side, grimacing. The rooftops below the sect terrace connected to the older quarters, abandoned shrines, forgotten spires overtaken by moss and shadow. From here, the noise of the crowd above was nothing but a dull hum. He staggered to his feet. The world spun. But he was alive. Someho

The summons came at noon, carved in red wax and sealed with mock formality. “Asher Kane is to demonstrate his combat capacity before the assembled disciples at dusk.”It was not a request. It was a public sentence dressed as a ceremony. When Asher unfolded the scroll, his hands did not tremble, but the ink seemed to bleed beneath his gaze. He knew what this meant: a spectacle. A trial engineered not for fairness but humiliation. After the failed hunt, the whispers had become knives. The sect elders needed a show, a scapegoat to reinforce their righteousness, and Asher Kane, the cursed disciple, would serve perfectly.By the time the sun bled low over Erevale, the rooftops were alive with noise. The sect’s training terrace stretched high above the city, open to the wind. Lanterns flickered along the perimeter, their glow catching the silver spires of distant towers. Disciples gathered like crows around carrion, their laughter rising in cruel rhythm.At the terrace center stood Yun F

“Be quiet,” Asher said sharply, eyes never leaving his sister.Lila’s voice faltered. “Why can’t I remember it all?” she murmured. “The memories slip away, like water through a broken cup.” Her breath came shallow. “I remember the cold. So many feet. The smell of iron. A child laughing, and a bell breaking.”Yun Fei rolled his eyes. “Delusions. She’s gone, Kane. The sooner you let her die, the sooner you’ll be free.”Asher felt something heavy inside him, anger, despair, fear, all tangled. “She’s not gone!” he shouted, surprising even himself.Yun Fei only smiled again. “Then keep trying to save her. When she turns on you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He turned toward the door. “You will destroy yourself for her, and no one will weep.”He left, his laughter echoing down the corridor. The room fell still again. Only the faint drip of water somewhere in the dark broke the silence.Asher sat down beside Lila once more, his breath unsteady. “I’ll find a way,” he said quietly. “I’ll save

The night still pressed against the mountains when the sect’s infirmary breathed its slow, heavy air. The stone walls held the cold. The scent of wet incense and iron lingered, mixing with the quiet rustle of thin curtains. Lanterns hung from chains along the beams, their glow soft and tired, like moons trapped in glass.Lila Kane lay on one of the narrow beds. Her skin was pale and still damp from fever. Thin black veins trailed under her arms and throat, pulsing like worms beneath ice. She didn’t move much now. Sometimes she murmured in her sleep; sometimes she simply stared upward, eyes open but far away.Her brother, Asher, sat beside her. His elbows rested on his knees, his hands raw from rubbing together. He had not left the room for days. He ate little, slept less. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her body shaking under the storm in the square, the light bursting from her veins, her scream swallowed by the wind.Now she was quiet. Too quiet. Inside him, a voice purred,

Erevale breathed darkness after dusk. The city’s narrow arteries, the underbridges, the broken alleys, the lanternless lanes, were veins of shadow where only the desperate and the damned wandered. And tonight, Asher Kane was both. The fog clung to him like breath on glass, his steps soft over the cobblestones. Beneath his cloak, his right arm throbbed, the veins along it blackened, faintly luminescent in the dimness. He could feel it now, the pulsing hunger of the mark, a rhythm that matched the whispers in his mind.“You seek redemption through blood, the Demon Sovereign murmured. Yet you still deny what you are becoming.”“I’m not hunting for myself,” Asher said under his breath, voice tight. “This is for Lila. Always for her.”And yet, the Sovereign purred, “it is my power you must use to save her. The irony burns beautifully, doesn’t it?”He ignored the taunt and pressed forward. The alley opened into a shattered courtyard, abandoned, save for a faint trace of sulfur and the cl

The dawn over Erevale was gray and bitter, like the city itself refused to wake. Fog draped over the rooftops, muting the world into silence. Below, on the temple’s cracked training grounds, Asher Kane stood alone, his breath misting in the chill air.The faint mark that Xuan Rou’s encounter had left on his chest still burned, an echo of the rogue shadow’s curse. He pressed a trembling hand against it, feeling the slow, rhythmic pulse beneath his skin, steady, dangerous, alive.“Soon,” the Sovereign’s voice whispered from within, rich and indulgent, “you will no longer fear your own strength.”“I don’t want your strength,” Asher hissed under his breath, eyes fixed on the ruined practice dummies before him. “I just want control.”The voice chuckled softly. “Control is born from surrender.”A chill ran down his spine. He clenched his fists until his knuckles whitened. The whisper was becoming harder to silence, too persuasive, too knowing. It slipped into his thoughts like smoke into