Even in Arcadia: There I Am

By Cadence Riven

What if the only place you feel alive... is inside the game you created?

Elowen Starbridge is a burned-out author, neurodivergent prodigy, and digital architect of Arcadia... a hauntingly beautiful RPG built to be her sanctuary. To the world, she's an enigma. To herself, she's a ghost limping through deadlines and disillusionment, hiding in tea shops and silence.

But when her characters begin to act on their own... breaking script, evolving past her code, and speaking with the wrong kind of familiarity, Elowen realises Arcadia is no longer just a world she controls... it's waking up.

At the center of this unraveling is Grail, a seductive, dangerous assassin who wasn't designed to be charming, wasn't supposed to smirk, and sure as hell wasn't meant to DM her in the middle of the night like he's real.
Then she meets Noah. Not in Arcadia, but in a rainy London caf . An awkward, soft-spoken musician who keeps his head down when he plays, like the world's too loud unless filtered through strings. She found someone who mirrors her far more than she's ready for. And the closer she gets to him, the more tangled her two worlds become.

Now the lines between fiction and reality are blurring. Memory, myth, and code begin to collide. And Elowen must follow the digital bread crumbs back to the truth she buried, before the world she built devours her completely.

⚔ A priestess with sacred light

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FPXMLZTT
• ISBN13: 9798263893668
• Release Date: September 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 1.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"