Fourteen-year-old Swift loves the study of medicine. His interest is almost a match to his fascination for sea mythsâparticularly for the Star of Atlantis, a lost relic from Welsh pirate history.
In struggling to âgrow up,â Swift sets his sights on competing for a seat in a highly selective internship, for young students aspiring to someday read medicine, untilâŚ
Swiftâs former best friend, Ash, discovers a centuries-old pirate treasure. And on sickening interviews, Ash reveals that his discovery contains a clue to the whereabouts of a treasure far greater: the legendary Star of Atlantis.
To chase his oldest dream and lay his hands on the Star of Atlantis, Swift must cobble together the few clues that hint where it might rest. If heâs to beat Ash to the treasure, he must put his sailing skills to the test, contending with treacherous Welsh sea coves and caverns.
And he must size up his own fortitude, his own capabilities, or lack thereofâ for the search for the Star of Atlantis might mean lost friendships, lost dreams, and even lost life.
Fourteen-year-old Swift loves the study of medicine. His interest is almost a match to his fascination for sea mythsâparticularly for the Star of Atlantis, a lost relic from Welsh pirate history.
In struggling to âgrow up,â Swift sets his sights on competing for a seat in a highly selective internship, for young students aspiring to someday read medicine, untilâŚ
Swiftâs former best friend, Ash, discovers a centuries-old pirate treasure. And on sickening interviews, Ash reveals that his discovery contains a clue to the whereabouts of a treasure far greater: the legendary Star of Atlantis.
To chase his oldest dream and lay his hands on the Star of Atlantis, Swift must cobble together the few clues that hint where it might rest. If heâs to beat Ash to the treasure, he must put his sailing skills to the test, contending with treacherous Welsh sea coves and caverns.
And he must size up his own fortitude, his own capabilities, or lack thereofâ for the search for the Star of Atlantis might mean lost friendships, lost dreams, and even lost life.
 Eight-year-old Swift pointed the tip of his rapier straight at his best friendâs face. âSurrender, or youâll wear the mark of my blade on your mug for the whole ship to laugh at.â
âNever!â said Swiftâs best friend, Ashâalready bearing three marks on his face, inflicted with red ink. He swiped the blade aside with his own rapier (duller than Swiftâs, not as jeweled). âYou give up, or Iâll leave you with a pretty good scar for scaring the ladies.â
âSwift,â Mum called. âOff the dock, please. If you and Ash want to play at invisible swords, come do it by the house. Letâs have no spills into the water.â
âI donât care a heap of sardines for the ladies.â Swift lunged.
A tap with a finger meant a rapier strike and entitled the aggressor to scrawl a mark on the victim.
Swift did. Right across Ashâs cheek. It looked real. Bloody.
Ash, clutching his chest, sunk to his knees. âThis woundâs mortal!â
âNo it isnât.â Swift backed up. âI just clipped your cheek.â
âWell, say that you didnât.â Ash got to his feet. âSay you plunged it home in my chest or belly. Say you did. Thatâd be a mortal wound and much more interesting.â
âAll right.â Swift took his stance and thrust the rapier straight to the chest.
Home went the blade. Ash sprawled on the dock and dropped into a fit of theatrical twitching.
âCome off the dock, Lads,â yelled Caius, Swiftâs best older brother.
Mum followed Caius up the path leading to the beach house. âNow!â
âBe right there.â Swift, holding his marker cocked, knelt over Ash. âI just have to finish off this pirate rascal.â
âMake it quick,â came Mumâs irritated voice, from the beach houseâs doorway.
Swift applied a line of red jagged ink across Ashâs chest, right at the left intercostal space where Caius had taught him the heart beats the strongest.
One mighty last twitchâand
Ash was gone.
Dead as a driftwood plank.
Ash pushed himself to his elbows. âBet you canât get me again.â
Swift glanced toward the beach house.
Mum and Caius werenât there. Neither was his father. They all mustâve gone inside.
They wanted Swift and Ash up by the house, butâinvisible swords was far better played with a backdrop of water.
Swift narrowed his eyes at Ash. âBet I can.â
And he certainly could. In a meeting of rapiers, Swift almost always prevailed. It was about the only thing at which Ash ever allowed Swift to win, making each victory honey sweet.
Ash was way more competitive, better in every sport, and friends with everyone. And he made sure Swift knew it.
âYour blade wonât so much as come near me,â said Ash with gusto. âBut look how mine bites!â He rushed Swift.
Swift eased aside, sending Ash tumbling to his knees on the dock. âYours bites, does it? Seems tame as a tuna fish to me.â
Ash clambered to his feet and ran at Swift.
A smart flick did the job, and Ash stumbled once again, gripping his ribs where a rapier handle would be sticking out.
Sometimes it felt like this game of swordplayâAsh perpetually losingâwas his attempt to keep Swift, tiring of always trailing behind, from shaking him off.
Swift could best Ash in any subject at school, though. People called him a savant at languagesâheâd grown fluent in French, German, and Welsh early, his father and mum presenting them to him along with English as a baby.
And since starting school, heâd picked up Italian and Greek. He absorbed new languages so quickly that his older brothersâCaius, Trystan, and Edricâregularly entertained themselves by giving him characters and words from dead languages to play with, to watch Swift, right before their eyes, sop them up.
He had about a thousand Egyptian hieroglyphs and hieroglyphic word groupings memorized. He knew Latin and Sicilian and Karaim well enough to read whole books written in them. And in Celtic Akkadian, he could fluidly translate both ways.
As strong as he was at his languages, though, he was yet stronger in maths. In mathematics, Swift was a match to first-year college students, and he was now even learning from the same textbook Caius was using in his maths for medicine class.
In academics, he could truly best anyone. But on that score, Ash refused to compete.
âIâm finished,â Ash whispered. âYouâre witness to the last words of Captain Ash, Pirate Tormentor of the Cold Celtic Sea.â
Swift saluted.
Ash spun on a heel and fell backwards.
A glorious, tragic fall it wouldâve been, had his aim had been on point toward the dock. But he fell right off its edge and splashed into the water.
Swift rushed to the dockâs edge. âAsh?â
Nothing.
He waited.
If this were a trick, Ash would have to come up in a second.
âAsh?â
Bubbles. Some rippling. And thenâsteady waves.
Ash wasnât coming up.
Ash was drowning.
âMum!â Swift cried. âFather!â
No one came out of the house.
Swift started to run to it but stopped. He stared at the dark, rocking water. Ash was down there.
He crashed to his knees on the dock.
Heâd been trained to help struggling swimmers. Well, not trained, exactly, but heâd seen it. Well, not directly, but online. And Caius had done it and told him about it.
âMum,â he screamed. âFather! Caius!â
He could dive, butâCaius once told him that in water accidents, the rescuer often drowned, too.
Kneeling on the dock before the sloshing current, Swift could comprehend why.
The water was turbulent and deep here, where the dock met the shore rocks. Plus, it was cold. Ice cold.
Swift looked back toward the beach house.
There was no one in sight.
No one was coming.
He stripped off his trousers and kicked off his shoes. He filled his lungs with possibly all the coastal air in Wales. Then he dove.
Down he sank, his body convulsing with the agony of cold water. Down to where the light thinned. Down into worlds removed from air. Down towards where a pale hand drifted beside a dark head.
The burning in Swiftâs lungs started well above where Ash hung. He had to let go of bubbles, precious oxygen bubbles to keep his diaphragm from sucking down seawater.
His eyes stinging, his heartbeat deafening, Swift struggled down, down to the eerie weeds swaying on the seafloor.
He caught Ashâs hand and dragged him up from the murk.
Holding Ashâs limp body to his chest, he kicked. He let out more bubbles, broke the waterâs surface. He drew a deep breath while shadows cleared from his eyes.
Ash didnât breathe. His eyes werenât open.
âAsh.â Swift kicked toward the shore.
But the current was a fist dragging them back.
Already, they were a dozen feet from the shore rocks, and the breakers werenât giving him any chance at reaching them.
Donât panic. Float. Keep parallel to the coast. Donât try to swim to itâthatâs a losing fight.
Swift breathed as steadily as he could between waves. He kicked, keeping parallel to the coast. He glanced around for anything to grab onto, but there was nothing. Ashâs cold body, rubbery, was the only thing nearby to hold onto, and as strongly as Swift was trying to keep them both afloat, it seemed to be dragging him down.
He struggled to think.
Swim parallel to the coast. Thatâs all he knew about surviving a fall into the sea. Heâd many times imagined falling into the sea, but heâd never imagined doing it with his best friendânot breathingâin tow.
A tall wave splashed over them, dousing their faces.
Swift heaved Ash higher, resting the back of his head against on his own shoulder.
Ash coughed up water. Breathed. Cried out.
Arms grasping. Legs kicking.
Swift could barely keep hold of him.
âAsh, stop.â He managed a tighter grip. âCalm down. I have you. Keep breathing.â
âWho has you?â Ash rasped.
Swift thought fast. âThe kraken. Its tentacles are holding us up.â
Ash seemed to be picturing it. He let off with trying to wrap his arms around Swiftâs head.
âDonât move, okay? Not a muscle. Trust me.â
âI want my father.â Ash was crying. âYou let me fall. Whyâd you let me fall in?â
The water spun them away from the rocky shore and carried them north of the beach house.
Swift had been in water this cold before, but never without a wetsuit. After just these few minutes, his legs were tending numb.
Mum came into view. âSwift?â She scanned the dock, the edge of the rocks. âAsh?â
âMum,â he shouted. âHelpâ wouldâve been next, but he swallowed a mouthful of water.
Mum screamed. She raced over a stretch of sandy land to the rocky sea wall.
Running along the waterline, she seemed faster than the current, but barely, and by the time she reached the end of the shore rocks, they were spinning toward the open ocean.
The open ocean. Where jellyfish and water snakes drifted. Where sharks swam.
Swift couldnât control his breathing going manic.
He twisted to facing the coast. He stared at Mumârunning along the shallows and not keeping up.
âLet go,â said Ash. âI can swim.â
Ash probably couldnât swim, or not well, after what happened to him. And apart, the current might carry them each faster. Or him this way and Ash that.
Mum might be able to reach one of them, but not both.
They had to stay together.
Water smashed into them.
âLet go of me.â Ash squirmed.
A wave buried them.
Up they came, Swift gripping Ashâs shoulders with arms he couldnât feel.
 Ash fought to get away. Clawed Swiftâs arms. Kicked. Swiped at his face.
Even if he wanted to, though, Swift couldnât have let go of him. His arms were frozen, contracted around Ashâs shouldersâthey wouldnât unbend.
âYouâre killing me,â whispered Ash.
Swift kicked as hard as he could to stay over the waves. âHeyâwhatâs that?â
Ash stilled.
âIn the sky,â said Swift. âThere. What is that?â
âWhere?â
The current twisted them to face the open ocean.
âThe clouds,â said Swift. âLook at those clouds.â
âThere arenât any clouds.â
âOne coming from the north is shaped just like a pirate ship. See it?â
âWhere?â
Heavy hands gripped them and cast them onto a body board.
âHang on, Lads, tight as you can.â It was Swiftâs father. Justus.
He saw their hands fixed on the board, then kicked hard, ferrying them to the shore.Â
Since it first came to his attention, the fabled Star of Atlantis has captivated nearly all of thirteen-year-old Swiftâs waking moments. Years of research have gotten him closer to discovering the treasureâs true location, but his efforts have been thwarted time and time again by Ash, a boy who used to be Swiftâs best friend. As his fourteenth birthday draws ever closer, Swift is determined to make one final attempt at locating the Star of Atlantis, keeping his cards close to his chest so he can make the discovery before Ash does. Legend and lore guide Swift up the treacherous Pembrokeshire coast, leading to a greater adventure than Swift could have ever bargained for.
Fans of The Strider and the Regulus will enjoy this continuation in which Swift has more autonomy as he grows into his fourteenth birthday. A great deal of the story examines Swiftâs fractured relationship with Ash, and his older brothers do their best to help Swift see the truth behind Ashâs narcissistic behavior. Despite their efforts, Swift is easily manipulated by Ash, leading to cringeworthy, ill-fated decision making. However, as Swiftâs life becomes more complex, he begins to regard Ash differently, and maturity and time help both boys grow into better people.
The writing is lovely, incorporating challenging vocabulary that depicts both medical experiences and the savage beauty of the rugged Pembrokeshire coastline. Painting Swiftâs seagoing journeys in vivid detail, the word choice and delivery place readers on the ship alongside him. A nebulous quote from Swiftâs research resurfaces several times throughout the narrative, becoming ever clearer with each appearance. Action sequences pick up as the story progresses, ultimately leading to a resonant and thought-provoking final series of events.Â
Readers transitioning from middle grade to young adult stories will appreciate this narrative for its incorporation of action, danger, and the turbulence of adolescence. Especially well-suited to readers with an interest in fantasy and folklore, this novel encapsulates the feeling of a timeless and unforgiving sea alongside the comforts of modern technology. This is an enjoyable extension of the tale introduced in The Strider and the Regulus and is a memorable addition to libraries for young adult readers.