In a meeting with Sergei Witte in the spring of 1906, the old financier reviewed the latest figures from the Russo-Imperial Bank with a look of grudging wonder. "The bleeding has stopped, Mikhail," Witte admitted, his heavy face showing a relief it had not held in years. "The bonds are a success, industry is responding. You've pulled the nation back from the abyss."
Mikhail nodded, accepting the assessment. "We've stabilized the patient, Sergei," he replied. "But the source of the original disease remains. A state cannot have two heads. As long as the Tsar remains the ultimate symbol of power, everything we have built is temporary."
Witte understood the implication immediately. The dual power structure could not last.
Mikhail began the endgame. He didn't use soldiers or spies. He used a committee of legal scholars and his closest allies on the State Council. For months, they worked in secret, drafting a document that would fundamentally reshape the nation: the first written Constitution of the Russian Empire, to be known as the Fundamental Laws.
It was a work of 21st-century political science cloaked in 19th-century imperial language. It established a State Duma, an elected parliament, with powers to debate laws and approve budgets, giving the people a voice and a crucial political safety valve. But it vested true executive authority in the Chairman of the State Council, granting the position powers over the military, the ministries, and foreign policy. It was a hyper-efficient, modernized autocracy. And it contained one crucial, carefully worded article: Article 87. It stated that in a time of grave national crisis where the sovereign was deemed unable to effectively wield the authority necessary to preserve the state, the State Council, with the assent of the Dowager Empress and the commanding general of the St. Petersburg Military District, could petition the Tsar to appoint a Lord Regent, who would hold the full and indivisible authority of the autocrat until the crisis was resolved.
It was a constitutional dagger, aimed at the heart of the monarchy.
When the document was complete, Mikhail moved. He did not go alone. He went to Tsarskoye Selo with his entire State Council: Witte, General Denisov, the Dowager Empress's representative, and the other key ministers. It was not a request; it was the unified will of the new Russian power structure.
They were received by Tsar Nicholas II in a grand hall. The Tsar looked thin and tired, a man lost in the tides of history.
Mikhail spoke, his voice respectful but firm. He explained that to secure the peace and prosperity they had fought so hard to build, to prevent another revolution, the monarchy must be placed on a new, modern foundation. He presented the Fundamental Laws as the only way to preserve the dynasty for future generations.
Nicholas read the document, his hands trembling slightly. He understood its meaning perfectly. The Duma, the State Council... it was all window dressing for the brutal reality of Article 87. It was a formal request for his own castration.
"This… this makes me a prisoner in my own palace," the Tsar whispered, his voice barely audible.
"It makes the monarchy a permanent and beloved part of a strong, modern, and efficient Russian state, Your Majesty," Witte corrected him gently. "It protects it from the political storms that your grandfather and father could not weather."
The final piece of the argument was the unspoken threat. Every man in the room knew that Mikhail now controlled the army, the banks, and the bureaucracy. Refusal was not an option. It would mean a swift, decisive, and humiliating removal, a true civil war that the Tsar had no hope of winning.
Nicholas II, a man who had never wanted to rule but was terrified of failing his sacred duty, looked at the faces around him. He saw no support, only a grim, unified resolve. In that moment, something within him seemed to break. He saw a path to escape the burden he was never meant to carry.
"If I sign this," he asked, looking directly at Mikhail, "what happens then?"
"Then we invoke Article 87," Mikhail replied calmly. "And I will formally accept the burden of the Regency, to rule in your name until the Empire is secure."
With a look of profound, soul-crushing weariness, the Tsar gave a single, slow nod. He signed the Fundamental Laws into existence. Then he signed the second decree, formally naming Baron Mikhail Anatolievich Volkov as Lord Regent of the Russian Empire, citing the grave crises of the war and revolution as his reason.
Mikhail returned to the Winter Palace that evening. The news was announced to a stunned but largely accepting nation. He walked through the vast, empty corridors, the sound of his footsteps echoing where generations of Romanovs had walked before. He entered the Tsar's vast personal study—his study, now.
Captain Orlov stood at the door. "Your orders, Your Highness?" The title was new.
Mikhail walked to the great globe in the corner of the room and gave it a slow spin. He felt no elation, no flush of victory. Only the immense, terrifying weight of absolute responsibility. The conspiracies, the gambits, the desperate climb—it was all over. He had won the game. He had taken the final piece. Alistair Finch, the frustrated historian, had just become the most powerful autocrat on the Earth.
"The planning is over, Captain," Mikhail said quietly, his eyes tracing the borders of the sprawling empire he now commanded. "The architecture is complete. Now, the real work begins."