The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

Today’s quote is from Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch, a story about four countries locked in permanent seasons – Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Spring has gone on the warpath, and Winter was the first to fall under their boots.

Spring has their own mines in their section of the Klaryns, but theirs produce deadly powders that fuel their cannons, the only mines in the world that harbor it. That’s what we thought the war was about – Spring wanted to expand their mine holdings. But when they won, they didn’t tear into our mines. They just boarded them all up, like their goal was simply to destroy Winter piece by piece, spirit by spirit, by making us sit back and watch Winter’s most valued possession fall into decay.

Once Angra kills us all, he’ll probably reopen the mines. But as long as we live, it’s more valuable to dangle our useless mines in our faces, taunt us and distract us into making mistakes, getting caught, falling into his open hands. Or at least, that’s what we tell each other, to make it feel less like the war was all for nothing.