One of the three objects of the Dread Trove — a golden harp whose power opens any door, carries its player across space, and on its twenty-sixth string halts time itself.
The Harp
A golden harp covered in intricate embossing and strung with silver — an ancient instrument of power that the Night Court hunts and Nesta Archeron claims, able to open any door, move its player through space, and — on its twenty-sixth string — halt time itself.
Hidden beneath the Prison, it sings to whoever can hear it — and the price of its song is the freeing of what the song's first note disturbs.
Relic
At a glance
The object
What it is
The Harp is one of the three objects of the Dread Trove — a set of ancient, made artefacts of immense power that the Night Court sets out to gather before its enemies can. It appears as a golden harp, its frame covered in intricate embossing and strung with silver strings. Unlike a true instrument, its strings are not tuned to music alone: the harp answers to its wielder as a tool of power, and it is sentient enough to call to the one meant to wield it. When Nesta finds it, the Harp “speaks” — inviting her to play.
Opening any door
What it does
Plucking the Harp's strings does not make song so much as it bends reality. It can open a way through solid stone, and it can carry its player across distance like teleportation — Nesta uses it to reach Cassian, then to spirit them both to Feyre and Rhysand's river house. Its twenty-sixth string is Time itself: at the climax of A Court of Silver Flames, with Feyre dying in childbirth and Rhys bound to die with her through the mating bond, Nesta plays that string to halt the instant of Feyre's last breath — buying the moment she needs to bargain with the Cauldron and save all three lives.
Beneath the Prison
Where it was found
Listening to the priestesses sing one evening in the House of Wind, Nesta falls into a scrying trance and locates the Harp: a vision of a mist-veiled mountain, a carved and etched gate, and a cavern where the golden Harp rests on black carved rock incised with symbols — hidden beneath the Prison. She and Cassian travel there and pass through solid rock to reach it. But retrieving the Harp is not free: the same note that opens the way disturbs the Prison's wards and frees Lanthys, an ancient being long imprisoned there.
Lanthys, Ataraxia, and escape
The cost of the song
Freed, Lanthys tries to claim Nesta, showing her a vision of conquest in which she wields the full Dread Trove and her Made weapons. Nesta refuses. When Lanthys attacks, Cassian throws a dagger that lodges in his chest, and Nesta — wielding her Made sword Ataraxia, which blazes with silver fire and forces the misty Lanthys into solid form — beheads him. She then uses the Harp itself to escape, plucking it to reach Cassian and to carry them both home.
Chain of custody
Where it came from
Within the world of ACOTAR the Harp is a Dread Trove object the Night Court seeks — and which Eris and the Autumn Court covet, displeased the Night Court holds it. It was hidden beneath the Prison until Nesta retrieves it. By the end of A Court of Silver Flames, Nesta holds all three Trove objects she has gathered — the Harp alongside the Mask and the Crown.
The Dread Trove
Kindred relics
The Harp is one of three objects of the Dread Trove gathered by the Night Court.
Canon
From the page
“The golden Harp, covered in intricate embossing, set with silver strings.”
A Court of Silver Flames