The ocean wasn't very far away.

Gavin could hear the waves washing against the beach in the distance, echoing along the white stone walls of the canyon they were in. The sun was bright as it reflected down along those cliffs and across the water, making him sweat in his armour as he followed Ferya through the slow-moving river to the half-crescent shaped falls. The two blood elves had disappeared into the jagged rocks and scraggly greenery around them, searching further afield for any sign of Eviaus and Murchadh having come through here.

Ferya was wearing her armour as well, and her eyes were currently closed. Her expression strained as she concentrated on what Gavin could only assume was using her power. Searching for magical gates or some non-physical sign that they were where they needed to be.

Time was running down and a part of Gavin was telling him they had to move, to keep searching, even as he panicked over the thought that the man he loved was out in the world somewhere, possibly near where that crazy elf with the murderous knife was about to be extremely angry about Ferya's trick.

The water stopped falling from overhead, exposing the cliff face and the carved out structures that looked little bigger than crawl spaces burrowed deep within the rocks. There were carved symbols in the rocks that glowed with Ferya's gold and black power, in ancient syllables that Gavin could not decipher.

Instead of trying, he picked his way along the shallow side of the river, leaping from rocks as he approached the cliff, breathing in the scents that mingled along the stone. The caves were ancient, though he could smell that humans had come and gone around them at various times throughout history. None of them had seen a visitor in years. There were more former burrows that appeared to be sealed up long ago with rock and mortar, that he could make out from smell alone, with pictures of bulls heads, swirls, and rudimentary vultures nearly erased from the rocks, after thousands of years of water moving over them.

It smelled like a human graveyard, an ancient one that no longer contained the smell of rot. Just a sad reminder of ancient lives that had disappeared long before humans had begun messing the planet up.

"I don't smell them here." He murmured softly and turned to look across the deep pool and river to where Ferya was standing in calf deep water, watching him.

Ferya's expression crumbled, and she sank to her knees, bringing her hands up to her face as she started crying. Gavin hurried away from the cliff wall, though the water didn't start falling again until he was safely beside his friend, gathering her into his arms to hug her tightly to him.

He wanted to reassure her, but found the words dying in his throat as he faced down the impossibility of the task ahead. It had only taken them a few moments at the first location of ancient human worship amongst vast rolling desert sands to realise that if the gate was closed; they had no way of opening it. Murchadh had the key, or he used to. It was, presumably, in Roisin's possession, meaning that they were only guessing when they concluded they were in the wrong place.

And if Murchadh and Eviaus were inside the gate, they had no way of getting to them, even if they were in the right location.

"It all seems so petty now. Our fight. Me feeling so betrayed by my grandfather. I was just so focused on myself and my feelings. And now it may be too late. I always assumed that I'd have Lucifer, or Murchadh, or even Baltha by my side. I can't do this alone. I haven't even scratched the surface of what they know." Ferya shook her head as she sobbed, her body wracked with grief.

Gavin wanted to give her the space to grieve, just as much as he wanted to get lost in his own feelings from everything that had happened so far. He allowed her to cry, rubbing her back for a moment longer before squeezing her gently. "You're not alone. You have me. And Andraste and Quinn, who are older and smarter than most of the Tuath Dé. And just because something happened afterwards, doesn't invalidate things. But we have to focus on what we can do now. We have to keep pushing forward, Ferya. I think Lucifer knew what he was doing when he started training you and gave you the necklace. And you proved him right, your necklace is safe. And we still have time. We'll figure it out."

"There's no trace of them here." Andraste was beside them, having approached silently, her eyes on the surrounding cliffs, though her expression contained empathy when she looked toward Ferya. "Gavin is right, Ferya. You are the right person for this job, because you are here doing this job. You got yourself here."

Ferya sniffled softly.

Then she nodded and slowly pulled away from Gavin, her eyes meeting his for a brief moment, before she gave him an unsteady smile. "Thank you."

Gavin smiled back and stood, pulling her up to her feet with him as he glanced to where Quinn was scaling down a series of boulders to join them. "One more site. Have you heard anything from Torix?"

He didn't know how that would work, but he knew that the magic users could call out to one another in ways that were beyond his senses. And though Gavin assumed that Ferya would have said something if she had heard from the other group, he hoped that the distraction would be a good one.

Ferya shook her head once and let out another shaky breath. "No. Alright. The next location... "

She unfolded the map that they had traced out, and focused on the next point in her journey, an even smaller island further south and east of where they were, across a vast stretch of land and another ocean. Gavin watched the map for a moment, then looked up toward the waterfall, seeing more than feeling Ferya's black and gold magic swirling around the four of them.

Then he blinked, his gut doing somersaults, and he was left looking up at another waterfall. The air he breathed in was thick with humidity and smelled like a rainforest. The surrounding cliffs were dark and long vines and palms hung down the cliffs. The sun was still bright, but it was a little further along in its day, and the thick foliage of the tree cover shaded them.

The spray from the water was cooler than the last place, and they stood on a scattering of rocks, with the river winding through more rocks and curving around a dark cliff. The pool below the waterfall was deep, and the water thundered more than the last one, its echoes replacing those of the ocean from their last location.

This river moved quick and deep compared to the last one they had been in, and Gavin could only assume it had the force to carry him downstream if he got caught up in it and his armour didn't drag him down into the rocks.

Behind the falls, the cliffs curved a little more, and more vines hung down the rock face, streaming water. Off to the left of the falls but still across the deep turquoise pool, a cave opened like a mouth, with jagged rocks on the bottom and a thick cover of moss and vines hanging down from the top It stretched back a little further, the darkness swallowing the light and preventing Gavin from seeing too deep within it.

The cliff nearest beside them stretched up six or seven stories, with the massive root systems of the acacia trees jutting out like handrails, the rocks piled almost like steps. Though it looked unused, it appeared that at one time, people used to climb up and down that natural stairway.

"I'll check up top." Quinn offered, nodding in that direction before nimbly scaling the roots, leaving Andraste to pick her way along the river, looking for tracks or traces of their friends downstream.

"I'm not too good at swimming." Gavin offered carefully, his eyes searching the cliff face of the pool, trying to find a way to scramble along the shore to where the cave was.

Ferya offered him a smile, her words a gentle tease as an invisible force lifted him off of the ground with her, though her wings remained loose at her back. "We can use my power to walk across. And I thought Eviaus was trying to teach you."

Gavin laughed softly, fighting a shudder that built within him as he began walking over the depth of water beside his friend. "Well, you know how Eviaus is. He's not the best teacher in the world, and Nake takes perverse pleasure in seeing me panic, I think. I can paddle around a bit, but you'd never expect that I was dating a nymph."

"Ferya! Gavin! Watch out!" Quinn was standing on the lip of the falls above them, braced against the force of the water on a half-submerged rock, though he was looking at something behind them.

Gavin frowned, turning in time to feel a heavy force barrel into him, sending him flying across the water to the opposite shore. He hit the rocks. His armour squealed as he slid across it, though he rolled, bringing his hands up in time to catch Roisin's arm as she brought the dagger down toward him.

But she was strong, and fast, and tossed the dagger to her other hand, slashing its blade at him, her eyes gleaming with a near fanatical hunger that chilled him to the bone.

Gavin brought his other hand over and the blade squealed against the metal of his armour, which shuddered and flashed with a contradictory combination of flames and water. Roisin was launched backwards away from him, though she landed deftly on her feet on the rocks at the edge of the water.

She frowned at him in confusion. "How do you have both water and fire magic protecting you?"

Roisin's confusion gave him enough time to draw his swords and though Gavin kept his eyes on her, he was cognizant of Quinn jumping off the falls into the pool behind Roisin. He offered a shrug. "Well, when you're best friends with a demon, and your mate is a nymph, they tend to put protection spells on you, I guess."

Because that's the only thing that made sense, though Gavin couldn't say when either of the two men would have done so. They certainly had never told him about it.

Ferya remained midair above them, and Gavin silently willed that she would stay away, though Roisin's focus on him was a little odd. He was the least threat of the group of them, Gavin couldn't understand why she'd ignore Ferya and the two blood elves in favour of him.

Roisin smirked at him, as if hearing his thoughts aloud, then glanced toward Ferya. "Give me the actual key, or your friends will die slow and painful deaths."

Gavin saw Quinn slide up through the water silently, out of Roisin's line of sight, and took his chance with the Cacique's distraction, launching into his best attack, setting her back on her heels, even as he heard Andraste yelling at Ferya to get to safety.

Roisin blocked twice, then redirected his attack and launched into one of her own, drawing one of her swords in the flurry of movement.

The woman was fast.

And incredibly skilled. Though Gavin should have expected that, seeing as how she had supposedly taught Murchadh how to fight. Even with Quinn sprinting toward him, Gavin knew he was in trouble.