The 7.1 main story puts three of Teyvat’s most guarded figures at the same table, and almost the entire scene is a negotiation over information. Anastasya brings a sighting nobody else can explain. Rhinedottir brings knowledge she refuses to hand over. What emerges in between is the clearest signal yet that Asmoday, the Ruler of Space, is no longer answering only to Celestia.
Quick answer: Anastasya spotted Asmoday standing beside an unidentified hooded figure during a beast hunt in Snezhnaya. Naberius and Rhinedottir treat that figure as a possible new master for the Ruler of Space.
Who is actually talking in the palace scene
The conversation takes place across a long table in a blue palace hall, and it opens on the royal palace of Khaenri’ah as it stood before and after the Cataclysm. Two people are seated, but three voices are in the room. Rhinedottir currently serves as the vessel for Naberius, the Ruler of Life, so the Shade speaks through a split-screen framing rather than a separate body.
| Figure | Identity | Role in the scene |
|---|---|---|
| Rhinedottir | Khaenri’ahn alchemist, “Gold” | Controls what gets disclosed |
| Naberius | Ruler of Life, fused with Rhinedottir | Interjects and analyzes |
| Anastasya | Cryo Archon, Mother of Khaenri’ah | Reports the sighting |
| Asmoday | Ruler of Space | Subject of the report |
Naberius starts by musing on the aesthetic qualities of civilization, which prompts Rhinedottir to ask her to stop breaking in. It is a small beat, but it establishes that the two occupy one body without agreeing on much.
An overhead shot of the hall marks the point where Anastasya stops the small talk and pushes Rhinedottir toward the actual purpose of the gathering.
The Snezhnaya sighting: Asmoday and the hooded stranger
Anastasya recounts commanding a mission in Snezhnaya against an unknown creature. In the course of it, she saw Asmoday, the Ruler of Space—an important encounter since the Shade has been away from gatherings of her own kind for so long.
The important detail is the person beside her. In the artwork, a gigantic creature rises above a snowy precipice, while Asmoday stands shoulder to shoulder with a hooded figure, not facing them as an enemy.
Anastasya recalls overhearing the stranger speak about witnessing the end of a story. Moments later both figures were gone, with Asmoday withdrawing by way of her spatial power.
Her forces then killed the beast without much trouble. Anastasya’s own read is that the creature was barely conscious and moving on instinct alone, not acting under anyone’s direction.
Why a new master is the working theory
Naberius and Rhinedottir turn the report over between themselves, and the detail that bothers them is not the monster. It is that Celestia logged no warning for any of it. An event of that size should have registered, and it did not.
From there the two land on the possibility that the hooded figure is a new master, someone Asmoday now follows. That reframes her long disappearance from the Shades’ meetings as a choice rather than an accident.
What Rhinedottir refuses to disclose
Anastasya takes the opportunity to seek specific information: how the Heavenly Principles currently fare and when they should awaken. Naberius recommends ending the exchange, while Rhinedottir refuses to answer at all.
Anastasya pushes back by needling Celestia directly, arguing that absolute power has left it with no respect for anything that might rival it. Rhinedottir stays seated and steers the conversation elsewhere rather than taking the bait.
The Third Descender, Irminsul, and Khaenri’ah’s bloodline
Rhinedottir changes the subject by asking a question of her own. She wants to know how much Anastasya still remembers of her own past after the Heavenly Principles altered her memories.
Her explanation is that the Heavenly Principles erased the Third Descender from Irminsul entirely, and that the Belyi Tsar is the only one left carrying any residual memory of him. Erasure at the level of the world tree normally leaves nothing behind at all.
Rhinedottir calls Anastasya the Mother of Khaenri’ah and directly says that Khaenri’ah’s bloodlines began with her union with the Third Descender. Thus, the ruined nation’s ancestry leads to a figure the sky intentionally erased.
She closes by laying out the pact that followed. The Third Descender offered his body to Celestia and was divided into seven parts, a sacrifice that reframes both Khaenri’ah’s origins and the memory tampering Anastasya has been living with ever since.
Nothing in the exchange names the hooded figure, and neither Shade claims to know who it is. What the scene does establish is that Asmoday is moving with someone outside Celestia’s awareness, and that Rhinedottir knows more about the Heavenly Principles’ timetable than she is willing to say out loud.
