After returning home from war, the struggling scholar Owen Mallory becomes obsessed with Sir Una Everlasting — the lady-knight who helped Queen Yvanne forge the nation of Dominion, and who died for her queen and her country. When Una's long-lost original manuscript lands on his desk, Owen discovers that his real task is not to study her legend but to live inside it: he is sent back through time to walk beside Una and make certain she plays the part the story requires of her.
Told by two second-person narrators who address each other across the centuries, The Everlasting binds Una and Owen together in a tale that always ends the same way, no matter how many times they are made to tell it. To change Una's fate, and to finally tell a different story, the two of them will have to rewrite history itself.
Alix E. Harrow's standalone fantasy draws on Arthurian legend — a sword set in a yew tree rather than a stone, a dragon, a grail quest — to ask what legends are for and whom they are built to serve, examining how a story can be turned into propaganda in the service of war and nationalism. It won the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 2026 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel.