Macaria closed her eyes.

How did Thanatos do this? Even as she listened, there were a multitude of forces swirling around her, desperate to take her away on their current. It was like being caught in the middle of a symphony – a thousand instruments strummed in all different directions and the temptation to be misled – to turn around in endless circles so that you could capture every note – was enticing.

Macaria willed herself to listen and hear only that which was relevant to her. She had to pick out the purest of sounds, the echo of new blessed souls, the rush of their end coming closer. They were her targets; everything else was just background noise.

Macaria.

Hades. Macaria felt her father's will drawing her near. It was icy and obscure and wonderful, tender and sweet but full of urgency. She let the shadows take her until she slipped to his side.

They were in her mother's lounge. Persephone was draped over a couch, her feet tucked up and her chest buried in blankets. She was reading a scroll. As Macaria winked into existence, her mother beckoned her and held out something that gleamed.

"Oh by all of creation, Macaria, a hero is here!" Persephone pressed something golden against Macaria's fingers. "It's amazing, he has paid us in tribute! He's in the House!"

Hades stood in the corner of the room, apparently stowing his helm. At a nod from her father, Macaria examined the object. It appeared to be a bough wrought all in gold, but she had never seen work so realistic, so exquisite.

"Is this made by Hephaestus or something?" she asked.

Persephone shook her head. "It is sacred from the groves near the Temple of Apollo – a natural bough made all in gold. I heard of it when I lived in Zeus's realm. It is said to keep anything precious preserved and safe from any that would do it ill will. Water from the bough has remarkable properties."

"A priceless gift," Macaria remarked, looking at Hades with confusion.

"The price this hero is willing to pay to consult with a Shade from Elysium." Hades answered her unspoken question. He sat gently next to Persephone and touched Macaria's arm. "How will you manage it?"

"Wh-What?"

"It is your dominion," Hades smiled. "This hero is requesting from you, not the whole of the kingdom. I leave his request in your capable hands."

Macaria gaped.

"Not you?" she clarified shakily. "Me?"

"You." Hades nodded. "I have every faith. Do as you will."

"Some of the Lampades are waiting outside," Persephone encouraged. "They are waiting on your orders."

Macaria had not bargained on such a burden so quickly but, true to her nature, she straightened and bowed to her parents.

"Um… I will need your vessel, dad. These are mortals."

"As you wish," Hades pointed. "It is at the dock."

Macaria turned her back on her parents and left them huddled together on the lounge. She had no intention of disappointing them.

The Lampades were some of the most gracious and efficient hosts of the Underworld. Following their audience with Hades, Deiphobe and Aeneas had been led to wait on Macaria's pleasure. The Goddess of Blessed Death gave quick, courteous instructions to her handmaidens and they shimmered, vanishing in flickers of the white light they carried in their hands.

Macaria took one breath outside of the doors to the antechamber where the hero and the sibyl waited. She wished she knew what she was doing. She wished she'd had more warning.

More than that, she wished Thanatos was there with her.

He's busy, she thought. And he always will be busy. I can't go waiting for Death to do my work for me. I can't ask him to hold my hand.

Macaria asked the servants to open the doors.

She'd had no experience with heroes, or mortals for that matter. Persephone had offered time and time again for her to accompany her to Zeus's realm and Macaria always declined. Taking in her first sight of a real living person, Macaria was a bit bemused.

Deiphobe was dainty, wiry from age but there was a touch of some god on her flesh and in her spirit. Her hair was white and flowed to her back and touched her waist. She sat as most of the immortals did when they were certain of their path – serenely, patiently.

But poor Aeneas was in another state. Macaria took one look at his shuddering limbs, his bloodshot eyes and hardened lips and assessed that he was the most frightened being she'd ever met. He had grit – there was some fortitude that was holding him together – and he seemed strong in body, if not necessarily in mind. He was pacing the room, wringing his hands.

The living don't belong here, Macaria reflected with some pity, staring at this strange and otherworldly soul. Not until they have lived their life through. Why do heroes do such strange things to test their worth?

The servants announced Macaria and the two mortals stood, bowed low and awaited her intention.

Macaria spread her hands.

"I hear you seek a very specific audience," she told them, trying not to scare poor Aeneas any further. "I am the goddess of those who reside in peace eternal."

Both nodded mechanically, like wooden toys. Deiphobe coughed and addressed her with her head down.

"I… must admit I did not foresee… The meeting is one between Aeneas here and his father, the companion of Aphrodite, who dwells in Elysium."

"Anchises enjoys the Isle of the Blessed, but the audience will need to be outside those sacred gates." Macaria gestured and the mortals stood. "Follow me."

Macaria guided the silent and obedient mortals to her father's vessel and headed for the shores of the Lethe. It was a space not far from the Gates of Elysium, but the waters had the properties of forgetfulness and any mortal who glimpsed too much of what they did not need to know could be quickly drenched in water without undue harm. The shore was dream-like and warm, for the banks were awash with the swell of thousands of memories being dragged away and Morpheus himself liked to occasionally lie in the sand and dream while awake by staring into the mixture of dying memories. She'd never had the gall to try it herself – even an immortal could lose too much of who they were if they bathed too long. Macaria told the Lampades to have the Shades outside of the Gates by the time they reached the shore.

"My goddess?"

"Yes?" Macaria turned in the vessel that the servant steered to see that Deiphobe had asked for her.

"May I ask…? For forgive me, I have little knowledge of the Underworld… Who you are so that the living may know where their prayers must go?"

Aeneas also stared keenly at her and Macaria was flattered by their interest. But there was something about Aeneas's fear, even more palpable in the small confines of the boat, which made her careful about her words.

Funny, I asked dad why he had so many names. Macaria mused. I never asked him what he asked the mortals to call him in the first place.

"Do not fear," Macaria asked softly, "for I am a gentle giver of Blessed Death to those who have lived full lives, good lives and deserve instant judgement to the Isle of the Blessed." She shrugged a little. "I am Macaria, daughter of Hades and Persephone. I will always be here for the good of heart."

Deiphobe bowed her head, kissed her own fingers in tribute. Aeneas hurried to follow her lead.

The ride was quiet after that. Macaria could feel the mortals' incredulity at the space they witnessed around them. Deiphobe seemed to be staring at her back, trying to take in Macaria herself.

She didn't foresee me? Macaria wondered. Have I overstepped Fate?

"Which of the pantheon places their blessings on you?" she asked the seer directly.

Deiphobe fished underneath the front of her robes for a moment before showing a thin, golden chain with a symbol engraved onto a disc at the end of it. Macaria knew that mark but had never seen it in the flesh – Apollo.

"My Lord has housed me in his Temple for many, many hundreds of years thus far," Deiphobe croaked, caressing the disc. "I have walked places with his Sight I never thought could exist. I feel his sunlight in the darkness." The oracle glanced at Macaria and the goddess felt something, like a shiver along her neck that whispered that Apollo had marked this one for Elysium and Deiphobe had surrendered her life to the god.

The vessel coasted into the shoreline and came to a gentle stop in the sands. Macaria directed her mortal visitors from the boat over to a plain between the Lethe and the Eridanus. The Lampades stood silently, their lamps casting a harsh white light to follow. Macaria stopped and let Aeneas approach his father.

Anchises had been old and feeble when he died, struck almost completely blind by Zeus for bragging about sleeping with Aphrodite when the king of the gods had not done so. The fact that Zeus had caused the lust in the first place was apparently beside the point – the God of the Skies had taken offence and Anchises had suffered until after the fall of Troy. But in death, Anchises had been returned to his former glory – his soul was unblemished and whole, permitted to enter the Isle of the Blessed. Tall, chiselled and darkened by his hours in the sunlight, Anchises's shade stood as his son remembered him – his kind, bearded face waiting impatiently. But as the two rushed to greet each other Aeneas's arms met only air and both men stood, swallowing their disappointment.

The interview was short. Macaria tried not to listen to much of it – something about Rome and Caesars and empires and other nonsense not relevant to her. She was distracted by a dark figure that stood on the opposite bank overlooking the Lethe.

Thanatos did not greet her, nor make a sound but she felt his stare and wondered at it.

He doesn't come closer because of the mortals, Macaria reflected. He doesn't want to scare them either.

Somewhere that revelation hurt her and her heart instantly went out to this lonely, cold figure on the bank that she had been struck with love for. What kind of eternity had Thanatos known? Her father had told her once that Death had always been – Death was around even before the titans, even probably before there were realms at all when everything was light and night intertwined. Who held Death when he wanted someone close? Who spoke to him of the little things – like what they had seen today or what they wanted to try? Who knew his desires or hopes or fears?

Hecate may of, once. Macaria knew that Hecate considered it her business to know everyone, to hold those dear who didn't know how to love themselves and had modest, quiet lives. Her father said that although Hecate was mischief personified, there was a reason she could quiet the restless dead and summon those beyond the grave – she had a way of finding things in the hearts of people that others overlooked. But Hecate grew bored with the familiar easily and always sought new entertainments – Thanatos may not have held much interest for her for very long.

The mortal and his deceased father prattled on about how to get out of the Underworld safely but Macaria paid them no mind. She lifted a hand and waved at Thanatos – just a little. She wished he could come closer and she could hold him, despite the company. She felt a little dizzy at the thought of his kiss again. She tried to smile at him but with his hood down she had no clue as to his response.

"Majesty?"

A Lampade brought her back to the task at hand. Deiphobe and Aeneas were saying their goodbyes. Macaria felt Death vanish and shook herself.

I'm getting distracted here.

"Yes?"

"I thought you ought to know…" The Lampade bit her lip, casting her eyes to the Shade of Anchises. "There's been some… unrest in Elysium."

Macaria frowned.

"What do you mean?"

The Lampade fidgeted. "There's… Well, a lot of the Shades are nervous. They think something's coming… No one really knows what but it's making things uncomfortable."

The prophecy, Macaria went numb. The Fates warned me. The titans are planning something and my father might not be able to stop it.

"I think I know of what you speak," Macaria told the Lampade, touching the young girl reassuringly on the shoulder. "I think it can be averted."

Else the Fates wouldn't have warned me… Surely. They never do anything without reason.

The Lampade shivered.

"It's like a storm's coming… I remember storms, you know? Zeus would stir the sky into such a frenzy the world was caught in his fury and rattled about like nothing I'd ever felt before… Like everything would fall apart from the force he wrought on the ground below."

"Just hold on," Macaria whispered to the Lampade as the mortals returned to her to hear her bidding. "Hold on and have some faith. I am working on it."

To hear that even the dead were picking up on signs of some great unrest was worrying. Macaria fretted silently in the boat as they returned to the House of Hades. Aeneas and Deiphobe were confident that Morpheus held the key to leaving the Underworld safely. Macaria did not keep them long.

"Our thanks, dear goddess," Deiphobe bowed to Macaria before they left. "The future will carry on as it must with your aid."

Aeneas was different after speaking with his father. His eyes were deep and dreamy, their depths alight with some kind of feeling Macaria couldn't describe.

It's like he's seen all the way down a long, long tunnel, she thought. With only a tiny little light signalling the end.

She knew how he felt. She was wracking her brains and trying to recall every last detail the Fates had bestowed to her, trying to pick it apart to see a future she couldn't imagine. Titans? Here?

"I do hope so," she told Deiphobe but it was Aeneas that she watched as she spoke. The man seemed like Atlas – the whole future on his shoulders and he was bearing the weight as well as he could with silence and fortitude.

Let's hope he gets a chance to see his future made, the goddess thought bitterly. Fortune be with you, Aeneas.

Morpheus came for the pair and Macaria was left to her own devices.

What now?

Macaria found herself stalking towards her father's study in a fit of energy.

There has to be something more than just these vague accusations that the titans will return. There had to be something more specific than that!

Macaria eased her way into the room. Hades wasn't in sight. That didn't necessarily mean that he wasn't present but Macaria had to take a chance. She pushed in between the Dead Chronicles and slid over to her father's desk. A creature of habit, Hades had a sparse desk when he wasn't in the middle of some work. There wasn't a single bit of parchment on the table. Macaria felt this was sign enough that he wasn't there for the moment.

"Macaria?" Persephone's voice issued from outside the door and her daughter froze, heart in mouth. "Are you there?"

Caught before I'd done anything!

"…Yes."

Persephone entered, one hand on her belly. When she found her girl, she smiled.

"How did you fare?"

Macaria sighed.

"It wasn't hard, mum. They were respectful, the talk was short. Listen, I have to get back to Elysium and I'm just trying to find something…"

"What are you looking for?" Persephone sat down, watching her unusually awkward daughter. "A chronicle? A scroll?"

Macaria floundered in silence. Her mother, patient as always, let her find her words.

"It's… um… There's sort of a lot of… Disturbance. And see, well, I came to…" Macaria huffed out her breath and tried to be direct. "It's about the Fates. When I saw them, they mentioned a threat from… the titans."

Persephone groaned and leant back into the chair. "Yes I know."

"You know?" Macaria couldn't believe her ears. "What do you mean, you know?"

"The titans have made plenty of prophecies and naysaid against Olympus for centuries," Persephone sighed, rubbing her aching legs. The pregnancy seemed to be catching up with her. "This one is about your baby brother."

Macaria stared at Persephone's belly which was showing her pregnancy clearly. Her mother took her hand, softly and gently.

"It will be alright," Persephone urged her. "Your father is making plans – when is he ever caught unawares…?"

"But that's just it," Macaria stuttered, "the Fates think he will falter because he is a father now and…" She shook her head. "What did the titan say?"

Persephone's voice was almost lulling as she recited what she knew.

"Three children born to the King and Queen of the Dead, foresaw Japetus. The first is the carrier of light that shalt never see the sun. The second shall suffer a fate worse than Death or else mark the rise of the Titans. The third shall wander with ghosts as comrades, seeking that which should not be sought."

Or else mark the rise of the Titans. Macaria considered the words. She had read and re-read (without Hades's knowledge) the account he had made of the Titan War. The story had been trademark Hades – he had focussed on the raw facts rather than the emotional side of the terrors the gods and goddesses had faced. But even her father had slipped and there were hints of the chaos, the terror, the dread that the mightiest and most dangerous of the titans had inspired. Macaria couldn't imagine a world full of the sort of decay the Fates had hinted at, she had been brought up on peace and order.

At all costs, another needed to be avoided.

"A fate worse than Death? Worse than Thanatos?" Macaria shook herself. "What does that even mean?"

Persephone took Macaria's face in her hands.

"I know you're scared, but love, it will be alright. Your father will figure it out. He has been working himself to the bone on efforts to ensure that the titans cannot rise. You'll see, we will ensure that it never happens and whatever happens to your brother…" Persephone shivered, Macaria felt her trembling fingers on her flesh. "He won't be dead. We will help him. We will save him from his fate."

Macaria clutched at her mother's hands.

"I need to see Thanatos," Macaria told her. "I will be back soon."

"Hades had talked it through with Thanatos many, many times," Persephone told her, letting her daughter go to rest both hands protectively across her stomach. "They will work it out."

Death knew? He knew about the prophecy for me and my siblings? Macaria kissed her mother's head and vanished into the shadows, taking her terror with her.

She felt Death. She drew him closer but he flitted away.

He's running from me?

She sped faster into the dark. She felt another life sever and the next rung close by. Macaria pushed herself into the monochrome on the edge of existence and caught Thanatos leading another soul into the greyness before the Gates of the Underworld.

Thanatos lowered his hood when she caught his arm. He was really quite beautiful for a man – with thin lips, high cheekbones and the palest of white skin. His eyes were cold but hard to look away from. Macaria was surprised at how young he looked with his hood down – a mortal may mistake him as much younger than her parents. His hands were long and delicate.

"Are you hiding from me?" she asked him.

Thanatos considered her.

"Not particularly."

Suddenly shy, Macaria let go and looked around.

"I need to talk to you somewhere quiet," she told him. "It's important; I wouldn't pull you away from work otherwise."

Thanatos dismissed his scythe and took both of her hands in his own. Although skeletal and cold, Macaria gripped them with force.

"Your wish is my command," he whispered and then they had moved.

Macaria didn't even bother looking around at wherever he had taken them. She wasted no time on small talk.

"What is a fate worse than Death?"