The air inside the prison chamber was thick - a suffocating clash of heat and frost, as Arson's flames licked along his arms and Glacius's icy aura spread like a creeping storm.
Ragnar's words still hung in the air like smoke after a wildfire.
"Prove it."
The dragon general stood tall, his towering frame a wall of muscle and scaled power.
His golden red eyes gleamed with a dangerous flicker, daring the two princes to act - to break free, to lash out, to show him something worthy of their so-called "royalty."
But there was a problem.
They were stuck to the very rivals they were meant to destroy.
Arson's left arm still pulsed with Sylvia's vines wrapped around his bicep - tendrils hardened by his own heat, fusing into his skin like living chains of flame-touched greenery. Every time he tried to flex, the vines seemed to tighten, crackling with a strange mix of life energy and magma heat.
"Can you not burn my vines any more?" Sylvia snapped, tugging them in an attempt to peel them off him.
"I wouldn't have to if they weren't clinging to me like leeches," Arson growled.
Sylvia's emerald skin darkened with frustration. "Maybe if you weren't bursting into flames every time someone looks at you the wrong way-"
"Maybe if you weren't spreading your weeds all over the place-"
The heat between them wasn't just literal anymore.
On the other side of the room, Glacius's icy skin had Peggy's golden wing feathers clinging stubbornly - the result of too much static electricity and too little space in their shared cage.
"Would you stop twitching?" Glacius muttered, twisting his arm to dislodge the glowing feathers stuck to his back.
Peggy flared her wing in irritation. "Maybe if you didn't turn everything you touch into a block of ice, my feathers wouldn't be frozen to your spine."
"Then get your wings under control."
"Get your cold under control!"
Their insults, though sharp, were underscored by something deeper - a tension as much about wounded pride as it was about their elemental clash.
Ragnar chuckled - a deep, rumbling sound that vibrated through the chamber. His dragon warriors, though slightly less amused now, kept their distance.
"You're all too busy bickering to be a threat," Ragnar mocked. "The mighty Fire Prince can't free himself from a plant girl's grip..."
Arson's flames flared brighter.
"And the Ice Prince is decorated in fairy dust..."
A thin layer of frost spread beneath Glacius's feet.
Sylvia and Peggy's cheeks darkened - part embarrassment, part fury.
"You're pathetic." Ragnar's voice was calm, cutting deeper than a sword. "I thought I'd be battling rulers... not squabbling children."
The words stung - not because they weren't used to insults, but because this time, there was a painful truth to them.
Then...
There was a sudden—snap.
Arson's body blazed as his adrenaline surged, his flames igniting so suddenly that Sylvia staggered back - though her vines still clung stubbornly to his arm, glowing from the intense heat. She screamed as she was able to feel the sudden intensity of burn due to the attached vine.
The fire spread so quickly that a few nearby dragon warriors flinched back from the heatwave.
Glacius, not to be outdone, unleashed a pulse of freezing air - his icy aura expanding outward and spreading frost along the broken bars of their cages. The floor groaned under the sudden clash of extreme heat and cold. Peggy shivered in pain clearly able to feel his attack due to her wings in direct contact with his body.
There pride was hurt pretty badly and they weren't able to hold back anymore.
But the problem remained - they were still stuck.
Sylvia tugged at her vine, which only wrapped tighter around Arson's arm, and Peggy flapped her wing harder, but the feathers remained frozen in place on Glacius's back.
And worse...
Arson and Glacius didn't even have the energy to attack anymore.
They had already exhausted there remaining energy using there last attack.
The more they struggled, the more absurd the situation became.