The Bell Beyond the Rain

Amara saw exactly what Aiden did - watched him reach behind her family's market stall and take the purse himself. So when he turns up soaked and friendless at their table days later, she knows precisely what he is. Knowing doesn't undo it. And it doesn't stop the storm that's coming. When the road to the high country starts failing - the crossing gone, the paths blocked, the cottage that holds the valley's only warning bell suddenly out of reach - Amara and Aiden are the ones left to close the gap. It will cost her the very rope she just finished making. It will mean trusting the boy who stole from her family in the first place. And when the bell's own line fails, it will mean finding another way to be heard. The Bell Beyond the Rain is a story about what restitution actually costs, and what ordinary courage looks like when nobody's watching to call it brave - the second book in The Hearth and the Road, following What the Fire Was For.