Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig thehost.net. NS
Answer
thehost.net. 1 NS ns3.thehost.net.
thehost.net. 1 NS ns2.thehost.net.
thehost.net. 1 NS ns1.thehost.net.
thehost.net. 1 NS ns4.thehost.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.thehost.net. 1 A 91.223.180.14
ns2.thehost.net. 1 A 46.4.57.177
ns3.thehost.net. 1 A 176.111.63.45
ns4.thehost.net. 1 A 94.130.133.155
ns1.thehost.net. 1 AAAA 2a0c:f00:0:0:0:0:1:14
ns2.thehost.net. 1 AAAA 2a01:4f8:140:14c8:0:0:0:7
ns4.thehost.net. 1 AAAA 2a01:4f8:13b:365b:0:0:0:155
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0