Young Hernandez Pizarro feels responsible for the drowning of his younger brother and begins to doubt his courage because he did not help him. His brothers too-small grave in the back yard haunts him, so he gladly seizes an opportunity to travel with Captain Martinez Pizarro, his uncle and an officer in the Grand Pizarro Military Tradition.Hernandez embarks on a journey that takes him across an ocean and into New Spain under Hernando Cortes. Desperate to prove his courage, Hernandez makes daring rescues of fellow soldiers in peril. Elevating the welfare of individuals above the whole places him at odds with Sergeant Pedro Casa, and his own uncle, Martinez. When they invade the Aztec capitol, Hernandez is assigned to guard the failing Montezuma. He falls under the spell of Nahuaxica, the daughter of an Aztec high priest and promises to save her brother, Itzcoatl, who has been slated to die on the pyramid since birth. As Cortes moves to annihilate the Aztecs, Martinez is captured and scheduled to be sacrificed with Itzcoatl.As the Aztec capitol crumbles around him, Hernandez must choose to either rescue Itzcoatl and Martinez or fight alongside his troops in the Grand Pizarro Military Tradition. Either decision will change his life forever.