Sephrium gazed over the bow of the windship as the earth below pulled gently away. Briefly, as the trees, homes and hills grew smaller, so did the troubles which had so recently overwhelmed him. Perhaps there was healing in the air? Yet, being aloft, he could not help recalling the thrill of riding with Alorhcon, his mage-father, on the great dragon, Zarhren, as it wheeled and glided through the skies above Tholin El. The pang of their loss shot through him like an arrow.
“You’ve ridden the wind before, I see,” said K’Har, interrupting his thoughts and his pain. Sephrium merely nodded and remained silent in his contemplation.
The windmerchant turned from him to address Perdan, “And you clearly have not!”
No longer glib and self-assured, the jacq sat huddled against the outside of the master cabin, his eyes alit with terror, his pallor decidedly green. With mixed amusement and pity, K’Har pulled the smaller man up to his feet.
“Come inside then, my brave magician. My home is most comfortable and if you do not look outside, you will swear you are in the best room of the finest inn of all Norin!” Perdan looked at him blankly, but

The biggest problem with this excerpt is the first paragraph. You're trying to cram too much into too small a space. Depending on where this is headed, you either need to leave out some of your clues, or give more time to them. For example, do we really need to know his mage-father's name, or the dragon's? And what about Tholin El? Is that the guy who stayed behind, or is it the name of the planet? If the former, do we need to know his name? If the latter, why not just call it earth (no caps), as you do in the first line? If these things are really important, then elaborate on them, don't give us just enough information to let us know that we're lost. Otherwise, chop them out.

The term "jacq" actually fits in with the above comments, though if it were the only such term in here it would probably be acceptable, provided it got explained soon.

OK. Now for your starting point. There's not enough here for me to be sure, but it feels as though you're starting where you are for the purpose of filling us in on the significant backstory. If that's the case, it's a mistake. You want to start just before your POV character gets involved with whatever is driving the story. (Take a look at OSC's discussion of the MICE quotient in Characters & Viewpoint for a more detailed discussion of that.) If that event or conflict is just about to occur, then your point of departure here is probably fine. But if you're going to need a flashback to fill us in on that first paragraph, or if we're going to sail on the windship for a while and pick up some background on this world, then you should pick a different starting point.

For all of that, it reads fairly well. Your prose is good, the dialogue feels fantasyish without being hokey or contrived.

I think that we need to get a better feel for Sephrium's relationship to his immediate environment before you start introducing a lot of things that we won't understand. First off, maybe a little better picture of the windship. Is it magically levitated, winged, dirigible, or what? The reminiscence about riding a dragon would be inappropriate if the windship doesn't move quite fast. Or you could put in a more concrete comparative, say specifically how one is different from the other.

Lose "Alorhcon" and "mage-", we can learn that later, and "father" should be unique enough for now (knowing that he took his son to ride a dragon also gives us a fair amount of information). Definitely lose "Zarhren", we don't need the dragon's name right now. "Tholin El" should be supported or supplanted by a simple description of what it is (his home city, his country, etc).

"K'Har" is okay, since he's there and you specify that he's a windmerchant (presumably meaning he's in charge of the vessel). Perdan needs to be better introduced, though. The term "jacq" doesn't mean anything to us yet. He sort of pops out of nowhere...not sure how best to fix that. Perhaps you should have him actively enter the scene...do something rather than simply appear when noticed.

Of course, I'm writing all this on speculation based on scanty evidence. If my assumptions are off, just ignore this post. (On the other hand, if I'm right, you must do exactly as I say. )

He should have died like the rest, he was presumed to have (by the bad guys) but because the magic was in force, although the bond was not complete, between himself and his dragon, he did not. But his dragon did. Sort of. It's more detailed than I'm relating here, but the dragon and the main character are merged physically (and no, the hero does not grow wings, but let's say he is rather impressive looking).

That's really where his story starts. There is, however, and older story more general to the world of Norin. I've toyed with the idea of starting the deeper story in a prologue.

There's really a lot to this book and I think that's one of the reasons it is so difficult to know where to start. The reader doesn't have to know everything--that would be an encyclopedia--but what to tell them and when presents a challenge.

Okay, I'll have to pick the creator's brain about the ceremony and intervening bloodbath (well, I think he got rid of most of the blood, it's more of a deathfest).

Sephrium gazed over the bow of the windship as the earth below [delete 'below'] pulled gently away. Briefly, as the trees, homes and hills grew smaller, so did the troubles which had so recently overwhelmed him. [Why 'briefly'?. Also, 'as the trees' is probably not needed. Thus -- 'The homes and hills grew smaller as did the troubles that had so recently overwhelmed him.']Perhaps there was healing in the air? Yet, being aloft, he could not help recalling the thrill of riding with Alorhcon, his mage-father, on the great dragon, Zarhren, as it wheeled and glided through the skies above Tholin El. The pang of their loss shot through him like an arrow. [I thought is was dissapating? If this is a reoccurance, I would emphasize as such.]
“You’ve ridden the wind before, I see,” said K’Har, interrupting his thoughts and his pain. Sephrium merely nodded and remained silent in his contemplation.
The windmerchant turned from him to address Perdan, “And you clearly have not!”
No longer glib and self-assured, the jacq sat huddled against the outside of the master cabin, his eyes alit with terror, his pallor decidedly green. With mixed amusement and pity, K’Har pulled the smaller man up to his feet.
“Come inside then, my brave magician. My home is most comfortable and if you do not look outside, you will swear you are in the best room of the finest inn of all Norin!” Perdan looked at him blankly, but

Alias-- If that was for me, I love the Simpsons. My mind snacks-out on that satire!