In Incarceron, a vast intelligent city-prison sealed off from the outside world and hidden from everybody except the Warden, two young people, Cynthia, the Warden's daughter who is trying to esacape an arranged marriage, and Finn, a young prisoner who cannot remember his childhood, join forces to attempt to escape.

After she is chosen to be "Bearer-of-the-god," Mirany questions the established order and sets out, along with a musician and a scribe, to find the legitimate heir of the religious leader known as the Archon.