Sir Una Everlasting was a female warrior who pulled a sword from a yew tree, avenged the death of her parents, saved the queen, and led the kingdom to glory. Glory that the fairy militaristic state of Dominion still uses to recruit members to its army and raise nationalistic fervor.
Owen Mallory was a coward who joined the army after seeing a recruitment poster with Una. He was badly wounded and now works as a professor specializing in folklore, especially tales of Una Everlasting. One day, he gets a book from an anonymous sender. It is the story of the death of Sir Una Everlasting - a book which was supposed to be lost forever. He starts to examine it, but then the book disappears from his home. He gets invited to the personal office of the former war minister, who might soon be the prime minister. She has the book and tasks Owen with translating it. But as he opens the book, it is empty - he must first write it. And then he falls into the past just next to Una, who nearly kills him. Slowly, they come to an understanding - Una is on a mission to kill the last dragon, get the holy grail it is guarding, and use the grail to heal the ailing queen. They manage their mission and bring the grail to the castle, where there is an ambush. One thing Owen knew was coming from the surviving tales of the hero. At the last moment, he saves the life of Una, but she is shortly killed by one of the queen’s guards who has turned traitor. That makes a moving story, which will boost nationalism for centuries and present an appropriate enemy nation to hate.
Owen returns to the present, but to the earlier point when he left. He doesn’t really remember the events from the past, but everything seems familiar. Things are perhaps a bit worse than earlier, a new war is coming, and nationalism is rising - and the nation needs stories on which to depend in hard times. He is ensnared again in the past, to rewrite the story, and again. But Owen and Una start to remember the earlier iterations. Can they escape their fate? Is Una doomed to die every time in a way that suits the needs of the propaganda of the future government, and increases nationalism (and the power of the ruler). And how many times have they already repeated everything before they start remembering earlier iterations?
A pretty good story. The mechanism and practice of time travel didn’t make much sense, but that didn’t really hurt too much. What DID hurt a bit was that the term “fascism” was mentioned, and even that it was “making the trains run on time”. So, early 20th-century Italy was a thing in this world? It was pretty jarring. The middle part of the book was pretty slow, but perhaps it was necessary so the reader could get to know the protagonists and their way of thinking, and so the protagonists could get to know each other. The writing was very good, “fable-like” and enjoyable to read. And the ending brought tears to my eyes, even though I was reading it publicly on a train.
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