Prequel -- Can be read before the first! No spoilers! Orion has been chosen to be protected by the Clockwork, a seemingly indestructible metal golem designed to guard him at all costs. He did not sign up for this. Add to the fact that a man named Syndra has taken over the country and wants to kill him and steal the Clockwork, and his relationship with Rami, a boy from the countryside, is cut abruptly short because of it, and Orion finds himself wishing the mysterious machine had never chosen him to begin with.