Lilia’s Dream

Malleus sends all of Sage’s Island to sleep in Book 7 so that they might enjoy “unending happiness,” “without sorrow, where you will never lose a single person—not friends, not family.”

However, Lilia’s dream takes place in a time before Malleus was born, and Malleus is unable to imagine any time before his own birth (more here ▶︎).

As a result Malleus cannot enforce his own rules, cannot banish sorrow from Lilia’s world, turning the one person he wanted to save into the one person capable of suffering.

Lilia’s dream is a recreation of the Human/Fae war of 400 years ago where he served as General of the Right of Briarland’s royal guard.

In the dream Briarland—as it was known before it was reduced to Briar Valley—has been invaded by humans who are cutting down the forests, laying waste to the mountains and plundering the resources through illegal mining, driving direbeasts into fae villages.

Lilia’s task in his dream is possibly a role that he filled in the real world: to deliver a letter from Princess Maleanor warning the humans to cease their ill-mannered conduct, search for delegates that have gone missing, and expel the human soldiers who are mining fae lands without having received permission to do so.

Lilia initially refuses to allow the group of Silver, Sebek, Grim and the prefect to join his troops, only acquiescing once Silver and Sebek manage to knock off his mask in a fight.

During their journey they come across personal belongings of missing Briarland envoys and do battle with human soldiers. While they do reach the citadel where they are to deliver their letter it is revealed to have been rigged with a trap that gives Lilia what is possibly a near-fatal wound when he rescues Silver, the human troops having gone to besiege the castle of the fae princess, Maleanor, while Lilia was away.

Lilia’s remaining troops return to Maleanor where she greets Lilia by striking him repeatedly with lightning and refuses to heed his advice and retreat, commanding him to escape with her unborn child while she distracts the human troops.

Lilia refuses to heed her orders despite how she strikes both him and her egg with lightning to force his obedience, begging her to flee with him: “What am I to do if I lose both Raverne and you?”

Maleanor says that Lilia is to hatch her egg in her stead if she does not return despite how dragon eggs can only be hatched by their parents’ magic and affection. Lilia claims that he knows nothing of parental affection and has never loved anyone and Maleanor reveals that this is untrue: he loved both her and Raverne, her husband, making it impossible for him to not love their child.

Maleanor has Lilia dragged forcibly from the castle, and when he insists on going back to her Baul (Sebek’s grandfather) convinces him to press on for the sake of saving the heir.

Their evacuation is interrupted by the Dawn Knight, who recognizes both Lilia and the egg he carries and still saves him from collapsing rubble, telling him to flee before he is spotted.

Lilia and Baul are pursued by human troops, with Baul volunteering to hold back a group of at least 15 soldiers on his own, despite Lilia’s protests: “It’s your head and the egg they want—neither of which we can let these wretched creatures have.”

Lilia is still captured by human soldiers, saved from imminent execution by Silver. Lilia attempts to sacrifice himself for Silver to take the egg on alone but Silver refuses, carrying Lilia on his back to the capital.

They are joined again by Baul and Sebek, and upon reaching the castle Lilia declares his intent to return to Maleanor, but then it is revealed that the princess has died, presumably slain by the Dawn Knight.

Briarland’s senate blames Lilia for her death, shaming him for failing to protect her and insulting him for being a useless, “dirty bat” and banishing him from the capital despite Baul’s attempts to defend him. Lilia resigns from his post and Malleus is taken away from him. 

Lilia says, “There’s no place for me here anymore…no one left to protect,” his despair drawing darkness that swallows him. 

In a continuation of the dream and/or flashback we see Lilia called to the castle by Queen Maleficia 10 years later, in secret, as Malleus is refusing her magic infusions and is in danger of dying if a solution cannot be found.

Lilia travels the world at Maleficia’s behest (communicated through Baul) to search for a way to hatch Malleus, despite how fae seem to be violently unwelcome in human cities, as “foul monsters.”

Lilia periodically visits the egg, which periodically accepts magic.

After finding an unspecified location that took him years to reach Lilia’s unique magic manifests: the ability to see the memories of objects.

While the place where Lilia is at this point in the dream is not named, it is an identical background that appeared during Spectral Soiree: a location in the spectral realm called “Sleepless Castle.”

According to Silver, Lilia once traveled to the spectral realm when “his work once led him to the border between life and death,” but it is not specified if Lilia’s visit to the spectral realm and the place where he discovered his unique magic in his efforts to hatch Malleus are connected.

Over time Lilia comes across humans who do not react with violence or anger upon realizing he is fae, telling Malleus that there are fewer people who throw stones at him, and there is a lot he wants to show Malleus when he is born.

Lilia receives a sudden communication from Baul saying that Malleus may not survive until the next full moon, as he has stopped accepting the queen’s magic for three months, his heartbeat has weakened and anyone who approaches him gets repelled by intense lightning strikes.

Lilia alone is capable of hearing Malleus crying inside of his egg and goes to him despite the lightning strikes, realizing that Malleus is lonely.

Lilia offers up his magic and his life and Malleus finally hatches, with Silver observing that it was the happiest moment in Lilia’s life.

Having been born, Malleus is now capable of forbidding any sorrow, which results in the senate praising Lilia for his efforts and calling him a hero.

The logical dissonance causes Lilia to wake up, as in reality he was abused for daring to touch the royal heir, with Malleus again taken away from him.

Malleus reveals he was never told any of the sacrifices that Lilia made for him.

Lilia sends the group of Silver, Sebek, Grim and the prefect away in order to distract Malleus alone.