Dax left the same day he got the coordinates from Sirius.
Caelan could rage in his palace and claim authority, but reality was harsh: Saha did not negotiate out of fear. It based its negotiations on scale. Dax ruled over a continent and a half, and the fact that he didn't even want the Emperor title - let alone reach for it - was a humiliation Caelan could never bear.
It took twenty hours to get from Saha to Rohan and another four to narrow the search down until the world became a single ugly point on a map.
Dax kept his mind empty on purpose. He didn't let himself imagine the end. That was for Chris - for their bed, for the parts of Dax that were allowed to be human and reckless and warm. This was something else. An old wound is closed without anesthesia, with the clinical necessity of a blade and a burning iron.
