Discarded (Emperor Yoongi x Reader)

Chapter Ten

When the soldier awoke, the sun was slowly rising.

He looked over and saw his horse next to him chewing grass. For a moment he thought he was in a dream, but the throbbing of his head told him that was not the case.

His eyes widened in panic as he recalled the events of last night and he immediately searched for the scroll you had instructed him to hand deliver to the emperor.

When his hands felt the paper he was overwhelmed with both relief and confusion. Quickly he opened it to check the seal that proved its authenticity. And when it was proven to be the real one, he finally gave in truly to confusion.

Had he been imagining someone stealing the letter?

If he had been, why was his head throbbing, and why did he still smell the strong scent of women's perfume?

In any case he had to report this to you immediately, and mentally prepare himself for the punishment.

———-

"What??" You asked in confusion as the situation was explained to you by the kneeling soldier.

The night before you had been too worried about the letter to sleep, and now you learned that someone had stolen it, and then put it back.

What exactly was the purpose of that?

"Your Highness, I should be sentenced to death for failing in my task," he told you, but you cut him off.

"That is much too drastic for this situation, it isn't your fault at all," you explained to him.

"You are too kind. Relay your instructions, your highness. I will not make a mistake a second time," he told you, his eyes shining with determination.

You had to think for a second before you could give him a straight answer.

The only reason someone would have to steal the letter and then return it would be to take credit for your plan and gain recognition for it, and then frame you for stealing it.

Whoever it very obviously wanted you dead. Lying to the emperor was a crime punishable by death. If they copied down your plan and sent it in first you'd obviously look like you plagiarized.

When the emperor called the two of you in to question you both, you'd look like the liar and be subsequently executed.

If Yoongi hadn't trained his soldiers so well, and this man had just hurriedly delivered the letter after he woke up to save his own skin, you would've fallen right into the trap.

But at this point you had an advantage, you knew their full plan, and they had no idea.

"Send the letter in," you instructed the soldier.

He immediately bowed and left the room.

If he rode fast enough maybe your letter could still arrive first and the plan would backfire on the one who planted it.

Either way you now knew you needed to be cautious. Everyone other than yourself was an enemy. Someone had eyes and ears in this palace, and they were trained against you.

You would have to keep all of your plans to yourself.

Thankfully, you had already formulated a plan that could get yourself out of this.

———

The next day you heard of the relief plan being implemented in some of the many letters you had to go through.

There were whisperings around the cities about how odd it was that the emperor hadn't credited the plan to anyone.

Usually if someone came up with a plan they would be publicly rewarded by the emperor.

This let you know that the emperor realized that two people had sent in the exact same plan. And your original hypothesis had to be correct.

He was probably conducting his own investigations.

This gave you a chance to stage the first part of your plan.

As the person who stole your letter should know, you told the emperor that there were many preventable problems that could happen with the plan, and that it wasn't foolproof.

Thankfully, you had the actual solution, but in an attempt to catch the culprit red handed prior to having to meet the emperor, you were going to plant a scroll of fake solutions that would make the situation worse.

In a brief meeting, you described to the soldier what you needed him to do, explaining that if this letter was stolen he shouldn't be too concerned as long as the news reached the emperor so he could better help the people.

To him this showed your grace and compassion, but for you it was a statement you said hoping the person behind this would hear and subsequently try to steal the plan again.

Whoever it was would never dare to mess with you again. You weren't weak anymore.

——-

Yoongi was walking back to his tent, his armor stained in blood and his clothes sticking to his body with sweat.

It was a long day. The rebel force was larger than they had anticipated and the first wave had been a diversion in order to flank Yoongi's army.

Thankfully they made it out with very little casualties because of their rigorous training sessions. The same could not be said for the enemy, whose blood filled the valley with its overwhelming stench. The men here could barely even smell it, having grown accustomed.

Yoongi was almost to his tent, ready to take a much needed bath when he heard it. Whispering about a dilemma in the capital city.

Yoongi had men making the journey back and forth daily to tell him of the news in the capital so that If need be he could send soldiers where they were needed.

Today the man who had reported it had been very bland, talking of the weather and the efforts to help after the landslide.

But today Yoongi stopped to listen as he heard your name being mentioned.

The man speaking with the soldiers who saw his tales of the capital as their own form of a tabloid news article hadn't noticed that Yoongi had stopped to listen.

"I wasn't able to hear much, but apparently Her Highness (y/n) and another young lady sent in the same plan for relief word for word! We all know the law concerning lying to the emperor, and he has put his best men on the case to solve who truly came up with it. From what I know they will be summoned to the main palace tomorrow-,"

Yoongi didn't care to hear more. He knew you had many enemies and he knew they'd do a lot to be rid of you indefinitely.

But as the one person who was supposed to care for you, as your husband, he couldn't let you die.

The aching of his muscles from the strenuous fighting he had been doing all day seemed to melt into nothingness as he readied himself for a long night.

He looked to a soldier who was standing by his side, waiting for a command.

Sternly he said, "Ready my horse."