At the arrival to the Grijalva River on March 12, 1519 in the present state of Tabasco, Cortés and his men encounter a 17-year-old Spanish boy who had been living in the area for several months. Diego de Dávila had accompanied his father Francisco de Dávila as part of a previous expedition where a battle between the natives and the Spaniards killed his father and others. Diego joins Hernán Cortés as they go into Potochán.
Diego is a good kid who is very interested in the native’s culture. He begins to learn Nahuatl from La Malinche and makes friendship with a young 9-year-old native boy named Ohtli who he grows to care for. Diego is heartbroken when the young boy is taken to be sacrificed in a ritual for Tlaloc, the rain god in which young children would need to cry before their hearts were extracted with the tears symbolizing the much-needed rain.
Diego travels all the way to Tenochtitlán were he falls in love with a young Aztec girl named Citlalin.