Christopher Columbus is in Lisbon in 1473, a young Genoese sailor growing used to Portugal’s capital. He tries to reconcile his past mistakes, praying for a sign. Again and again, he hears the same words:

“God called you and you are justified.”

Columbus first meets Filipa, the daughter of a Portuguese navigator. Their marriage is simple but rooted in respect, and soon Columbus finds a sense of belonging he’d never had before. Filipa’s family opens the door to maps and knowledge gathered from voyages around Africa, knowledge Columbus studies

“for hours, then days, then weeks, then months.”

They build a small family together, welcoming their son Diego and settling on the island of Porto Santo. But this short peace ends abruptly with Filipa’s death, likely soon after Diego’s birth. Columbus is left a widower, broken, unable to bear the silence of the house he once shared with her:

“If Filipa had lived, I think I would never have left Portugal.”

With no family to anchor him, he throws himself fully into the idea of sailing west. Encouraged by a letter from Paolo Toscanelli, and inspired by Marco Polo’s tales of kingdoms dripping with gold, Columbus becomes convinced that unimaginable wealth lie across the Atlantic, just four thousand miles away.

Strange evidence washes up on Atlantic shores: giant reeds, carved planks, even two bodies with features unfamiliar to Europeans. Columbus interprets these as signs:

“All of it pointed in one direction: land, somewhere out there, sending these things as a kind of message on the tide.”

In the meantime, he keeps his skills sharp, sailing north to Iceland and down the African coast, pushing his limits, while the world around him changes. Printing presses spread new knowledge, the compass gains trust, and Portuguese explorers stir again under King John II.

Columbus sees that if he is ever to chase his dream and the idea of sailing west to reach the east, his moment is coming.