Marco Weber
Nick Kazan
Cortés and his soldiers enter Tenochtitlán, astonished by its beauty and order. Emperor Moctezuma, convinced the Spaniard fulfills an ancient prophecy, welcomes the strangers as divine guests. For a brief moment, two civilizations share the same breath—gold for faith, faith for power.
But Cortés cannot stop conquering. Fearing betrayal, he seizes Moctezuma “for his own protection,” turning host into prisoner, friend into pawn. Marina becomes the uneasy bridge between them, her words now instruments of domination. When another Spanish army arrives to arrest Cortés, he abandons the city to fight his own countrymen and returns victorious—only to find Tenochtitlán in flames.
The Aztecs revolt. Moctezuma is killed, and the Spaniards flee through the night as thousands die around them. Yet Cortés’s hunger endures. Months later, hardened and merciless, he returns with native allies to lay siege to the city. Famine, plague, and fire consume the empire. Marina, broken by guilt, translates the pleas of the dying while Cortés proclaims divine victory.
When the smoke clears, the greatest city of the New World lies in ruins. Cortés stands amid the ashes of his triumph, a man who conquered everything except himself. As dawn rises over the silent lake, the narrator’s final words echo: “We found a new world… and lost our souls.”
2026