Seeds of Despair

A Beyond the Veil Story

By: J. Michael Radcliffe

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

In the heart of the ancient forest, something precious is dying—and a dark wizard is to blame.

For ten years, young Jerrick has served as an apprentice clerk at Deadwood & Blight’s potions shop, cataloging rare ingredients and tending to customers with dreams far larger than his own. But when his master, the powerful and feared sorcerer Malignus Blight, returns from the shadowed woods with a satchel full of secrets, Jerrick begins to sense that something is terribly wrong.

A hidden box.
A cache of impossible “seeds.”
And whispers of a boy who never came back.

When a late-night argument turns to murder, Jerrick discovers Blight’s horrifying truth: the “seeds” are not seeds at all—they are faerie wings, torn from living creatures and sold for gold. And the old wizard will kill anyone who stands between him and his grisly trade.

Trapped by a soul-binding curse and dragged deep into the forest south of Shadowmere, Jerrick becomes an unwilling witness to Blight’s greatest crime yet—the withering of the Custos Arboris, the ancient guardian tree that binds the entire woodland together. As faeries fall helplessly to the forest floor and the guardian’s life-ebbing cries echo through the trees, Jerrick must choose:

Obey the wizard who holds his soul…
or sacrifice everything to end the darkness forever.

Seeds of Despair is a dark, atmospheric tale from the Beyond the Veil universe—a story of forbidden magic, moral courage, and the terrible price of doing what is right when every choice leads deeper into shadow.