The Hourglass Wars

In the valley of Whisperwind, where twilight eternally reigns, time is a constant, a rhythm as familiar as a blacksmith’s hammer against steel.  Elara, with soot ingrained in her skin and strength forged in fire, knows this rhythm intimately.  But her world shatters with the discovery of an obsidian hourglass, veined with gold, unearthed from the ruins of a forbidden clockwork tower.  A single touch unleashes a torrent of fractured timelines, a kaleidoscope of shattered realities.
The hourglass whispers of power, drawing the attention of empires and mages.  The Ironclad Empire, a relentless force of clockwork soldiers, sees a weapon of domination.  The Luminary Order, a clandestine sect of time mages, envisions a tool to reshape history. Elara, now the unwilling custodian of this artifact, is caught in a temporal crossfire, her simple life irrevocably altered.
But the hourglass holds a darker secret: Chronos, the god of time, not a benevolent deity but a prisoner of his own design, trapped within the obsidian depths.  His whispers, insidious and seductive, promise Elara unimaginable power, preying on her vulnerabilities and tempting her with the forbidden knowledge of time itself.
Joined by Lysandra, a time mage disillusioned with her order's manipulative tactics, and Kaelen, a former Ironclad general haunted by the ghosts of his past, Elara embarks on a desperate quest across fractured timelines. They hunt for the scattered shards of the Chronal Stabilizer, the only device capable of containing Chronos’s escalating madness.  But with every tick of the hourglass, Chronos’s influence grows, twisting minds and driving empires towards a temporal apocalypse.
Elara’s journey takes her through forgotten temples and across battlefields where past, present, and future collide. She learns to manipulate time, mending shattered realities and glimpsing into the tapestry of existence.  But each use of the hourglass exacts a price, eroding her sense of self and blurring the lines between her own past, present, and future.
As Chronos’s whispers intensify, promising to restore her fractured memories and reveal her true connection to him, Elara faces a devastating choice. Can she resist the seductive allure of his power, or will she succumb, sacrificing her freedom to save all of creation? The fate of time hangs in the balance, held in the hands of a blacksmith who dared to defy the chains of Chronos.