The 2026 historical fantasy novel The Unicorn Hunters is a standalone work from the New York Times bestselling author of the Winternight Trilogy, Katherine Arden. Set in the late 15th century, the novel reimagines the life of the real historical figure, Anne of Brittany, the young duchess of a realm on the brink of being annexed by France. To prevent a forced marriage to the French king, Anne fabricates a unicorn hunt to buy time for a secret political alliance. The ruse plunges her into a world where the ancient myths of her homeland are real, forcing her to confront a dangerous sorcerer and harness newfound magical powers to fight for her throne. The novel rewrites the historical record, focusing on Anne’s fight for autonomy and exploring The Objectification of Women Through Conquest, The Use of Myth and Folklore as Political Tools, and The Relationship Between Leadership and Self-Sacrifice.

Like Arden’s previous work, The Unicorn Hunters is deeply rooted in medieval folklore and history. The narrative draws heavily from Breton mythology, featuring the enchanted forest of Brocéliande, magical beings known as korriganed, and the legend of Ker-Ys, a magnificent city swallowed by the sea. The novel also imagines a fantastical origin story for the celebrated late medieval tapestry series The Hunt of the Unicorn, which some art historians believe was commissioned by the real Anne of Brittany. By weaving together, the actual political crisis of the Franco-Breton War with these mythological and art history elements, Arden creates a world where a nation’s cultural heritage becomes a source of tangible power, allowing its queen to fight for the independence her historical counterpart was forced to relinquish.

This guide is based on the 2026 Del Rey e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, illness or death, death by suicide, and sexual content.

Plot Summary

Anne, the young duchess regnant of Brittany, faces the imminent loss of her realm. France, having defeated Brittany in war, sends the envoy Guillaume de La Trémoille to finalize Anne’s marriage to King Charles, a union that will annex her duchy as a French territory. To thwart this plan, Anne has secretly arranged a proxy marriage with Maximilien of Austria, heir to the Holy Roman Empire, hoping his army can protect her independence.

To buy time for her plan, she and her half-brother Henri, Baron of Avaugour, concoct a ruse, convincing the avid hunter La Trémoille to delay negotiations for a grand unicorn hunt in the mysterious forest of Brocéliande. Anne schemes to conduct the proxy wedding at the convent of Paimpont within the forest, a place where divination—the primary means of magical intelligence gathering—does not work. Enlisting the Austrian envoy, Baron Wolfgang von Polhaim, as Maximilien’s proxy, the clandestine wedding proceeds in an eerie, red-walled chapel. The ceremony is interrupted by an anaon (a Breton ghost) of a woman with a slashed throat, who gives Anne a heavy, jewel-backed mirror before vanishing. Polhaim departs to inform Maximilien that the marriage is legally binding, leaving Anne to carry out the charade of the hunt.

The unicorn hunt begins, but to everyone’s astonishment, a real unicorn appears, fleeing a phantom hunting party from the Lost Lands, a faerie realm that borders the mortal world. Feeling a strange connection to the beast, Anne leads it away to save it from La Trémoille’s spears. During the pursuit, she and the unicorn phase between the mortal world and the sunlit woods of the Lost Lands. She manages to save the unicorn, who allows her to cut a lock of its mane before it disappears.

In the unicorn’s wake, a man named Julien Moreau stumbles out of the Lost Lands, claiming to have been lost for 200 years before collapsing. Back in Nantes, Moreau awakens, claiming to be a diviner named Miravi with no memory of his time in the faerie realm, save for a single, ominous message: The king of the korriganed (Breton faerie folk) intends to marry Anne and will send three signs—water, fire, and memory—to prove his power. The situation is further complicated by the arrival of Marguerite of France, the French king’s powerful sister, who brings the recently freed political prisoner, Duke Louis of Orléans, to ensure the marriage between Anne and King Charles proceeds without further delay.

To distract them, Anne stages a Triumphal Entry into Nantes to celebrate her encounter with the unicorn, but during the parade, a magical, inexhaustible torrent of saltwater gushes from a parade float, only stopping when Anne herself touches it. Anne realizes it is the water sign from the king of the korriganed.

The magical threats escalate. The fire sign appears as a terrifying but harmless phantom fire that engulfs the castle, inspiring fear in the court and strengthening Marguerite’s argument that Anne needs French protection. Meanwhile, Anne’s younger sister, Isabeau, and Elesbed, a young orphan girl Anne rescued from the forest, discover that Moreau has magical abilities. They witness him banish another anaon using the reflection in a cup of wine. Believing he can help them fight France, Isabeau steals the mirror Anne received from the ghost and gives it to Moreau, unwittingly restoring his full power.

After Anne experiences the memory sign—a ghostly reenactment of her late father’s final picnic—Elesbed realizes Moreau is the manipulative sorcerer behind the threats and tries to warn the duchess. Moreau traps the child in the Lost Lands, but Anne’s latent magical abilities are awakened by an encounter with a sea-drake (a mythical water dragon), senses Elesbed in the Lost Lands and pulls her back through the shadows. Just as Anne orders Moreau’s death, Louis of Orléans reveals that her guardian, Jean de Rieux, has betrayed her to the French to save her from the korrigan-king. As French soldiers storm the castle, Louis, who’s in love with Anne, helps Anne, Isabeau, Henri, and their allies escape. They flee through Nantes, harried by sorcerous illusions conjured by Moreau, which Anne, despite the immense physical toll, manages to dispel with her own developing powers.

The fugitives reach the castle of Châteaubriant, where Anne lies dying from the strain of using her untrained magic. She begs to be taken outside, where the unicorn appears and heals her with a touch of its horn. While Anne and her party secure the city of Rennes, Louis rides to Ghent, only to discover that Maximilien is also under Moreau’s enchantment, captivated by a phantom of his deceased wife, and will not sail. The French army, led by King Charles and Marguerite, besieges Rennes. Believing victory is at hand, they propose a grand tourney. The event descends into chaos as Moreau unleashes powerful enchantments: A phantom knight, unnatural darkness, and illusory fire, using the confusion to magically open a sealed tunnel and allow his French allies to capture the city. At the victory feast, Moreau appears, taking Isabeau hostage to force Anne into marrying him. As he vanishes into the Lost Lands with Isabeau and a defiant Elesbed, Anne grabs Louis’s hand and uses her power to plunge into the shadows after them.

Anne and Louis arrive in the Castle of Never-Was, a bewildering fortress in the Lost Lands, and are immediately separated. Each is tempted by a series of enchanted rooms depicting their most cherished fantasies—a victorious Brittany for Anne, a quiet life with her for Louis. They resist the illusions and find each other.

Meanwhile, Elesbed, aided by her magically astute cat, Butter, locates and frees Henri, who was also trapped by Moreau. Together, they all converge in the blood-red chapel where Moreau is holding Isabeau. As Henri and Louis fight off korrigan guards, Anne confronts the sorcerer. Using her power, she makes the ghosts of his four murdered wives—the anaon who have been haunting them—solid enough to take their revenge. They surround and destroy Moreau as Anne and the others escape. The korrigan-queen, an ancient and powerful faerie, offers Anne a choice: return to a losing political battle in the mortal world, or undertake a perilous quest to find the lost, magical city of Keris and claim its power, establishing herself as queen.

Anne chooses the quest for Keris. The korrigan-queen sends her family to safety while Anne and Louis travel into the Lost Lands. Stopping at an inn for the night, Anne meets Gralon Meur, a king of the mortal world who married a korrigan princess. Pressed by Anne for the truth he admits that his daughter has plunged Keris into darkness, holding its people captive. He tells her that the sign of a true sovereign of Keris is the blessing of a unicorn.

Anne calls the unicorn and an awed Gralon Meur gives her a white dress that belonged to his wife and ring with his sigil as tokens to demonstrate her authority in Keris. The unicorn carries her across the vast, dreamlike expanse of the Lost Lands to the shores of the sea, where Keris stands, trapped in an endless, decadent, night festival under the rule of its mad, cruel queen, Ahèz. Anne rides the unicorn into the city and confronts Ahèz, rallying the despairing populace with a promise of dawn. Her own growing sorcery, amplified by the will of the people and the unicorn’s power, shatters the enchantments binding the city. With a final, agonizing effort, she pulls Keris back into the mortal world.

Defeated, Ahèz dies by suicide, and the people of Keris proclaim Anne their queen. Anne is reunited with Louis, who pledges to marry her and command her armies. Now the master of a powerful, magical city-state, Anne uses a subtle enchantment to trap the French leadership in Rennes, forcing them to recognize her new, sovereign kingdom of Armorica and withdraw their armies. No longer a pawn in the games of kings, Anne annuls her marriage to Maximilien, marries Louis, and ends the story a queen in her own right, her destiny finally in her own hands.