Sightline

At the GeneralsTale academy, high above the 9×10 board, there circled a sharp-eyed hawk named Sightline — and she watched the one line nobody else remembered to watch.

Sightline wasn't a piece you moved. She was the eye that saw a rule — the strange and beautiful law that the two Generals may never look straight at each other down an open column with nothing in between. "I'm Sightline," she said, tilting her keen head. "The facing-Generals rule — duì liǎn 對臉, the flying General. Here's the secret most beginners miss: if the file between the two Generals ever clears, the one whose turn it is can fly their General the whole length and capture the other. So that face-off can never be left standing. There's an invisible thread between the two Generals, always. I'm the one who keeps an eye on it."

A young player moved a piece off a central file, and Sightline let out a sharp cry. "Look!" The student froze. With that piece gone, the column between the two Generals was suddenly open — they faced each other down a clear line. "If it were your turn now," General Mei the mentor said, "you could fly your General straight up and capture. So she can't make that move — it would expose her own General to flying." The student stared. "I didn't even see the line." "Almost no one does," Sightline said, settling her wings. "It's invisible until you train your eye for it. The two Generals are always, secretly, watching each other. I just make sure nobody forgets."

The academy instructor asked Sightline to teach a class on noticing. "Our students leave their Generals facing and lose in one move," the instructor said. "Will you teach them to see the invisible line?" Sightline was glad to.

When she teaches, she gives one rule: "Before every move, glance up the file between the two Generals. Is anything between them? Good. Is it about to clear? Careful — that's the flying-General trap, for you or against you. The line is invisible, so you have to choose to look." A student, about to move a blocking piece, paused, glanced up the open file, and saw the danger just in time. "I almost flew right into it," she breathed. Sightline gave a pleased little cry. "But you looked. That's the whole craft. The danger you see coming is a danger you can dodge."

After class, Sightline perched high on a rafter, her sharp eyes still sweeping the board out of habit, tracing the invisible threads between the pieces.