"You are weak... I don't need you," my father said.
That was what my father told me when I was officially stripped from my status as a possible successor to the head of the family at the age of seven.
"You never deserved to be in this house," my older brother said a few moments later.
"You were destined to do great things. One of them is becoming my successor," my stern grandfather, also known as the Head of the Sinclair family, said with a smile on his slightly wrinkled face.
He told me this nine years later in his studies.
I blinked three times from disbelief.
"I believe I just misheard something that sounded too good to be true, Grandfather," I told him nervously.
My grandfather laughed in a very jolly manner. He soon picked up a dart with a long pin and threw it past my neck and through my long brown hair. I felt a small stream of blood slowly trickle from where the dart had grazed me. A droplet of sweat ran down from my head.
He soon picked up a small steel double-edged knife from his desk.
"I do not joke about these things," he said as he touched one sharp edge with his bare thumb.
He soon held the blade with his index and middle fingers and proceeded to be in a throwing position.
"Do you still doubt me?" he continued.
"Not... Not at all," I said with some slight shakiness in my voice.
He chuckled softly.
"It sure sounds like you do."
"If I may ask, why me? You surely must know of my con-"
He threw the knife without any warning. It slightly grazed my cheek.
"That is of no matter to me," he cut me off. "You were destined to be my successor the moment you were born."