The year is 1938. Twenty years have passed since the end of the Great War.
St. Petersburg, the undisputed capital of the world, is a city of gleaming spires and silent, electric trams. Its universities are the planet's premier centers for science and art. Its banks, backed by the Gold Ruble, dictate the flow of global finance. The Eurasian Economic Union, a massive bloc of prosperous and interconnected states under Russian guidance, stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Congress of Nations, headquartered in a grand palace on the Neva, has successfully mediated border disputes and colonial dissolutions, preventing the outbreak of another major war for two decades. The world is at peace. It is a Russian peace.
In the highest office of the Winter Palace, Lord Regent Mikhail Volkov, now a man of forty-four, looks out over the city he built. The youthful fire in his eyes has long since cooled into the steady, immense pressure of absolute authority. He is no longer the striving baron or the wartime commissioner; he is a living monument, a figure of almost mythical stature whose decrees shape continents.
The door to his study opens, and Princess-Regent Sofia enters, her grace and intelligence undimmed by the years. She is, as she has always been, his partner, his confidante, and his most honest critic.
"The reports from the reconstruction of Germany are ahead of schedule," she says, placing a file on his desk. "Their industrial output, integrated with ours, now surpasses that of the entire British Commonwealth. Witte would be pleased."
"Witte was a good man," Mikhail says, his voice a quiet rumble. The old financier had passed away peacefully years ago, having lived to see his dream of a powerful, industrial Russia realized beyond his wildest imagination. "He understood the power of a single, logical system."
"A system you designed," Sofia counters gently. "You have given the world twenty years of peace and prosperity, Mikhail. A feat no Caesar or Napoleon could claim." She looks at him, her expression searching. "Does the weight of it ever lessen?"
Mikhail turns from the window and looks at a portrait of his son, the Tsarevich Alexei, now a brilliant, serious young man of nineteen. "No," he says. "It only changes its shape."
Later, he summons his son to the study. Alexei has been raised in a unique crucible—tutored in military strategy by the aging General Denisov, in statecraft by the members of the State Council, and in the secret, true nature of the world by his father alone.
"I have reviewed the intelligence from Captain Orlov's directorate," Alexei begins, his tone professional. "The last of the nationalist resistance cells in the Caucasus has been… pacified. The German integration is proceeding smoothly. There are no significant internal or external threats to the Empire."
It is the simple, unvarnished truth. Mikhail's rule is absolute. His Directorate is so efficient that dissent is not crushed; it is simply identified and surgically removed before it can ever take root. His people are safe, prosperous, and content. They are also subjects in the most perfectly realized autocracy in human history. The ghost of Alistair Finch, the man from a world of messy, chaotic freedom, is always there to remind him of the profound irony. He has saved humanity from the 20th century's worst horrors, but at the price of their liberty.
"The absence of threats is not peace, Alexei," Mikhail says, walking toward the massive globe in the corner. "It is merely control. My work has been to build the machine and ensure it runs without flaw."
He places a hand on his son's shoulder. His gaze is no longer that of a ruler, but of a father, and of a man bearing a secret knowledge that has kept him isolated from the rest of humanity for his entire life.
"My knowledge, the foresight I used to build all this, is finite," Mikhail confesses, the first time he has ever admitted such a thing aloud. "It is a memory of a world that no longer exists. I know the path that led to the atomic bomb, to the digital age, to the great ecological crises of the late 20th century. I have steered us away from the worst of it, but new paths will emerge, new challenges I cannot foresee."
He gestures to the globe, a world he has saved and conquered. "I built the foundation. The strongest foundation in the history of mankind. But a foundation is not the entire structure."
He looks at his son, the heir to an empire and a burden unlike any other. "I have mastered this century. It will be your duty, and your children's duty, to master the next one. You will not have my memories to guide you. You will have only the principles I have taught you: logic, reason, and a will of iron."
Mikhail feels a sense of completion settle over him, not of triumph, but of a task fulfilled. The great game is over. The frantic climb is done. The architect has finished his masterpiece.
"The world is yours now, Alexei," he says, his voice finally touched by a hint of weariness. "Do not break it."